Year: 1873

Senate there was some discussion OF the re-
cent naval preparations with regard to the
Virginius case, apropos to the measure To
appropriate money to cover the expenditures
actually made. The bill was passed giving
four millions.


Our International Friend, tho Fog.


The home Of Cockneydom, the modern
Babylon, in short, that three and half mil
lion microcosm, London, has enjoyed from
time immemorial specially in fogs His
Brumous Highness was q close ally of the
aboriginals who under Cassivelaunus or the
Amazon Queen, Boadicea, withstood the
Roman, and we doubt not that Caesar himself
would have any day preferred a battle with
the Britons to struggle with their fog. 1t is
a London institution, as much to be hankered
after just for once as the Tower or the dome Of
ST. Pauls both of which the American
tourist will "do'' before he is twenty-four
hours old in the British metropolis. We have
had fog, and despite the delays on the
ferries, the accidents on the streets and the
sudden prevalence Of catarrh, the majority Of
our citizens relished, it as the Chinese did q
late snowfall in Sacramento, and thought
that America had produced misty article
equal to any in the foreign market Men who
had read Of London fogs called the yesterday
Of Gotham ''pea soup day." Vain aspira-
tion We confess to a failure. Our business
men who sleep in Brooklyn or degenerate
during the watches of the night in Jersey may
think that they had fog enough yesterday, but
out Of sheer compassion for the New World
let them not dare the worst that the fog demon
can do. We did not have London fog yes
terday, and we do not want to have one. Yes
terday's was q fog, possibly OF the Banks Of
Newfoundland breed, whitish, long-haired,
smoky-wreathed. In this it may have q GER
tain British air about it, but it is not cir
cumstance to the real old genuine original
London fog. Yesterday you could see blue
sky. The child Of Bethnal Green would, on
this fact being admitted, at once declare
it ga himposture, not fog you know"
Yesterdays atmosphere, 0 children Of the
New World, represented the average
morning air Of London, with the
blue sky out of the question. 1t was the sort
of day on which old Samuel johnson, emerg-
ing, in his nearest approach to cheerfulness,
from his lodgings, would say to his friend,
sSir, let US take walk down Fleet street"
When London complains of fog you may be
certain, in the classic language of the Cockney,
sHits fog has his fog," and none Of your
poetic faists like those that the old Ersa
heroes, Cuthullin and Fingal, rode in over.
shady Morven, or that Jupiter rolled around
Olympus when he was not at home for s'com-
pany." No, it must be a counterpart of that
horriic visitation with which Moses frightened
Pharaoh and his followers out of their wits,
and which he describes under the pleasing
euphemism Of spalpable darkness London
looks out of its windows and calls it 'spea
soup day." A glance towards the place
where the sky should be reveals thick
soggy blanket Of color between yellow
and brown. The sun is red as the sun
Of the Apocalypse, and he is ''shorn of
his beams," with as close shave as Samson
was of his Nazarene estrength-containing locks.
Across the street dull blur of red or yellow
glimmers through the ambient blackness to
tell you that a light struggles there. The
effort of making these observations over, you
are conscious of choking sensation as if
clammy-handed footpad had you by the throat
and was squeezing your windpipe 1t is only
the fog. Your eyes weep involuntarily for
your lungs. You cough, and the momentary
opening of the mouth causes an inrush Of the
aerial pea soup. You ore fed on that mouth
full for the day and the acrid taste thereof is
worse than unripe persimmons. If you were
a fiddleless Nero you could no more whistle over
the woe than fly Your nostrils are clogged
with SCOT, the chill permeates your warm
clothes and you can shiver and perspire to-
gether Meteoric inkboys rush shouting
along the greasy footpath. You are jostled by
people who live in the fog as creatures of the
mist. You feel your weakness and cease to
wonder at the insular pride of the Cockney.
Go to- Old Probabilities, thou didst not give
us fog like unto this, and, if thou lowest
Ava do