And if the lovely Thais sits beside me, provided she does not lay a
stress upon my head and purse (I am a married man, and the father of a
family, and always hope to behave as such), I don’t object. He is not a
wise man who quarrels with his bread and butter; he is a fool who expects
to find no thorns amongst his roses. What I have gone through, dear
madam—for it is to the ladies I appeal—what I have gone through, dear
madam, is really astounding, at any rate to myself. How I have survived
at all is “one of those things no fellah can understand.” Repeatedly
ruin has stared me in the face. Repeatedly have my young affections run
to waste. Repeatedly have I been crossed in love, and tramped up and
down Cheapside and Fleet Street, a blighted being. At this very moment,
if I may trust to my medical knowledge, I am now suffering from three
distinct diseases, any one of which is mortal; and yet if you were to
meet me in the street, or have a chat with me in a quiet café over a
cigar, or sit next me at a City dinner, you would swear that I was one of
those old fogies whom nothing troubles, without nerves or feelings, who
vegetated rather than lived in the little tragi-comedy we call life. It
may be that little personal details are uninteresting. I admit they are
not matters of transcendent importance. You do not need master them if
you are going up for your degree, or going in for a Civil Service
examination. I mention these merely to show that I can put up with a
good deal—that I am not easily put out of the way; and that I should be
one of the last persons in the world to call anything a nuisance, unless
it were really such. Under these circumstances, I may claim a right to
be heard; and, when I state that I have no private aim, that, laying my
hand upon my heart, my only motive is the public good, I believe that I
shall not lift up my voice in vain.
Well, to waste no more words about it, of the nuisances of London it may
be said their name is legion. In the first place, there are the streets.
If you get out at Farringdon Street Station, and walk towards the Holborn
Viaduct, it is of little use your having had your boots cleaned that
morning—a little shower of rain, and the pavement is covered with mud.
This ought not to be. Let us take another nuisance. All at once, as you
walk along, you see a chimney vomiting forth clouds of smoke. This is a
great nuisance, especially on a fine summer day, when the atmosphere of
the City may be said to be almost clear; and this nuisance is the more
unbearable as there is a law to put it down, which law is actually to a
certain extent carried out. Let anyone take his stand on some spot where
he can get a good view around him, and he will be sure to see some
chimney, in spite of the law, darkening the sky and poisoning the air.
Then there is the orange-peel, which has shortened many a valuable life,
and quenched the light of many a home. Then there is the crowded traffic
of the streets, which renders all locomotion impossible, and keeps you
sitting, angry and fuming, in a cab, when it may be you are hurrying off
to save a bill from being dishonoured, to keep an appointment with a rich
aunt or uncle from whom you have great expectations, to have a last fond
look at someone whom you dearly love. As to the disputed points as to
the pavements, I have nothing to offer. To those who have to live and
sleep in the City, asphalte, I should say, must be the greatest boon
devised by the art of man. With asphalte you may talk pleasantly to a
friend in Cheapside, you may get a reasonable night’s sleep in St. Paul’s
Churchyard, or you may crack a joke without bursting a blood-vessel
opposite the Mansion House itself. Be that as it may, as the question as
to the comparative merits of asphalte, or granite, or wood will be
settled by wiser heads than mine, I say no more; but what I complain of,
and what is a nuisance to everyone, is the perpetual tinkering and
repairing always going on in the streets, and the consequent blockade for
a time of certain important thoroughfares. What with the drainage, and
the water, and the gas pipes, and the telegraph wires, there is in most
of the City ways as much bustle almost under the street as on it, and an
ominous board with a notice from the Lord Mayor turns aside a tremendous
traffic, and is a terrible nuisance as long as it lasts. Surely this
waste of time and annoyance is, a great deal of it, unnecessary. All
that is wanted is a little more contrivance and forethought. I was once
discussing the subject with a leading City man and an M.P., as we were
travelling together in a railway carriage on our way to a pleasant
gathering of City people many miles away beyond the sound of Bow Bells.
“Well,” said he, with a suggestive wink, “the thing is easily explained;
the rule is, for the surveyor’s son to marry the contractor’s daughter,
or something of that sort, and so between them they manage to play into
each other’s hands, and always have done so.” Of course the M.P. was
joking. No one could conceive it possible that our civic guardians, our
common councilmen, our aldermen, our City officers, would allow
themselves to be imposed on, and the public to be robbed in this way;
but, alas! it is a pity that there should be ground for such a joke, that
it should seem in any way to be founded on a fact. We are not so bad as
we were, I admit, but that is no reason why we should not be better.
Even now there are parts of London to which Gay’s lines are applicable
when he writes:
Though expedition bids, yet never stray
Where no ranged post defends the rugged way;
Here laden carts with thundering waggons meet,
Wheels clash with wheels, and bar the narrow street,
The lashing whip resounds, the horses strain,
And blood in anguish bursts the swelling vein.
Something like this may be met with any day when the stones are greasy on
Fish Street Hill, as the waggons turn up from Thames Street laden with
the heavy merchandise of that quarter of the town. As I have quoted Gay,
let me give another quotation from him. In one of his fables he writes:
How many saucy airs we meet
From Temple Bar to Aldgate Street.
Proud rogues who shared the South Sea prey,
And spring like mushrooms in a day,
They think it mean to condescend
To know a brother or a friend.
They blush to hear their mother’s name,
And by their pride expose their shame.
There are just such men as Gay wrote of to be met in our streets, and
they are a nuisance, but the law of libel, in the interest of rogues who
live by getting up bubble companies, is hard on the press, and I prefer
to quote Gay to making original remarks of my own, remarks which may be
true, which may be useful, but for which the proprietor of any paper that
would publish them would have to pay heavily, at any rate in the way of
costs.
Later in the day, one of the nuisances in the streets is “Those horrid
boys.” They have come home from work, or school; they have had their
tea, it is too early for them to go to bed, their fathers and mothers
don’t know what to do with them at home, and so they loiter about the
streets, and carry on their little games in them, much to their own
satisfaction, but very much to the annoyance of everyone else. One of
their favourite amusements is to run in groups, like so many wild Indians
or a pack of wolves, howling and shrieking in a way very alarming. It is
no use talking to them. It is no use putting the police on after them.
The belated citizen, on his way home to the inevitable suburb, is
frightened into fits ere he reaches his much-hoped-for haven of rest.
And the small shopkeepers in the quiet streets—which they more especially
affect—in terror rush to the door, believing either that there is a fire,
or that Bedlam has broken loose, or that the Fenians have come. In some
parts, as in Whitechapel, the wild girls of the streets are even worse.
There are many local nuisances in London; one of the chief of these is
the conduct of the watermen about the landing-places near the Custom
House. Females and foreigners, who have to take boats to the large
steamers lying in the river, are frightfully plundered in this way.
These men feel that they can rob you with impunity, and they abuse their
privileges.
“Ah,” said one, after he had squeezed a five-shilling piece out of a poor
foreigner for rowing him a few yards, “I’ll put up with it this time, but
don’t do it again,” as if he, the boatman, and not the poor foreigner,
had been the victim of a most atrocious fraud. Such fellows as these
should be kept honest somehow. Who does not recollect that chapter in
“Vilette,” in which Charlotte Brontë has recorded her waterside
experiences? How she was landed by the coachman in the midst of a throng
of watermen, who gathered around her like wolves; how she stepped at once
into a boat, desiring to be taken to the _Vivid_; how she was fleeced by
the waterman, as she paid an exorbitant sum, as the steward, a young man,
was looking over the ship’s side, grinning a smile in anticipation of the
row there would have been had she refused to pay. I had an experience
somewhat similar myself. Perhaps I got off easily. In those dark
wharves on that black river, here and there lit by a distant and
dimly-burning lamp—at that midnight hour, when all good people are in
bed, it is well that there is nothing going on worse than robbery in such
a mild form. Had I been dropped overboard, I am sure few people would
have known it; and I am not certain that I have no reason to be grateful
to the lot amongst whom I found myself that they attempted nothing of the
kind. Late at night there are many dark and lonely spots in the City
suggestive of dark deeds. In some one walks with fear and trembling.
Suspicious people have a knack of turning up in such dark places; and the
police can’t be everywhere.
Then there is the water supply. It is all very well to have a spirited
foreign policy abroad, but we do want a little common sense at home; and
the sanitary state of the nation is of the first importance. You cannot
blame a man that he refuses to drink bad water, and takes beer instead;
and if anything be clearer than another, it is that the water supplied to
the working man is bad; for whilst the rich man can have his cisterns
regularly cleaned out, and his water filtered, the working man, as a
rule, uses the water as he can get it, and suffers in consequence, both
in person and in pocket. Under the influence of this state of things, it
is not surprising to find mothers refusing to allow their children to
drink water on the plea that it is bad for their health. Nor are these
mothers to be blamed. It is a fact that in England and Wales alone
upwards of eight hundred persons die every month from typhoid fever; a
disease which is now believed to be caused almost entirely through
drinking impure water. It is a fact that in London we have little pure
water to drink, the companies are put to a great expense to filter their
water, and yet every week we read such reports as the following from Dr.
Frankland, the official to whom is entrusted the analysing of such
matters: “The Thames water, delivered by the West Middlesex, Southwark,
and Grand Junction Companies, was so much polluted by organic matter as
to be quite unfit for dietetic purposes.” The other day I had to pay my
water rates; imagine my disgust at having to do so when the Government
inspector in the daily papers informed me that the water supplied by the
company was totally unfit for dietetic purposes! The evil is no new one.
It has been ventilated in every way; and yet in London, the wealthiest
city in the world, we cannot get a cup of pure water. People can have it
in Manchester and Glasgow and New York; but in London—which claims to be
the capital of commerce, the seat of Legislation, the model city—we have
poison in the cup—as science tells us that we cannot take with impunity
the living organisms and fungoid growths with which London water more or
less abounds. Lately the working men met at Exeter Hall to say that it
was time to put a stop to this disgraceful state of things. As Cardinal
Manning said, if they wanted to give a subject the slip, the proper way
was to get a committee of inquiry, and if they wanted to bury it
altogether the right thing to do was to have a Royal Commission. Action
is what is wanted. There are ten Parliamentary boroughs, and it was
proposed to hold public meetings in each of them, to form a central
committee, and thus to create a public pressure to which Parliament would
have to give way. As it is, as Sir Charles Dilke pointed out, we have
eight water companies in London who have increased the cost of water all
round without improving the quality. What is to be asked is, that a body
of men be formed in London to have the care of the water supply; and, as
Mr. J. Holms, M.P., pointed out, the sooner this is done the better, as
every year the companies’ properties increase in value, and there will
have to be paid to them additional compensation. The importance of the
subject was, perhaps, most pointedly brought out by Dr. Lyon Playfair,
who argued that, as in each average individual there were 98 lb. of water
to 40 lb. of flesh and bone, he calculated that there were before him at
that time as many as 25,000 gallons of water; and if that water was
impure it must vitiate the blood and lower the health of all. We must
have, he said, a good supply of water, pure at the source. We must have
good receptacles for storing it, and we must have a constant system of
supply.
What great events from little causes spring! Last year a gentleman was
run over by a butcher’s cart through the careless driving of the butcher;
and finding that accidents of that nature were of frequent occurrence and
were increasing, he, with other gentlemen, obtained a return of the
number of accidents from Sir Edmund Henderson, the chief of the
Metropolitan Police, which showed that, in 1878, 124 persons were killed
and 3,052 run over in the Metropolitan districts. But this is not all.
The return only showed such accidents as came under the knowledge of the
Metropolitan police. Accordingly application was made to the
Registrar-General of Deaths, and from him it was ascertained that 237
persons were killed by vehicles and 3,399 run over during that year in
and around London; and hence the formation of the society for the
prevention of street accidents. Further researches made by the secretary
among the London hospitals resulted in learning that run-over cases
formed the most common class of accidents. The house surgeon of the
principal hospital wrote that he computed there was an average of thirty
“run-over” cases a week brought there for treatment, which, in that one
hospital alone, would make 930 accidents attended to there yearly. The
result of the society’s operations are satisfactory. At any rate this
year the returns show one death less, and a falling off in run-over cases
to the number of 517. Such decrease the society claims to be the result
of its labours, on the ground that every year during the last ten years
has showed an increase of six per cent. If this be so, it was well that
the secretary was run over, especially as apparently he was not much hurt
by the operation. Physically he is as fine a man as you would wish to
see; and though undoubtedly the sensation at the time was not an
agreeable one, yet, if it has led to the reduction of street accidents,
how much cause have we to rejoice. It seems almost as if Mr. Buckle were
right when he questions the beneficial effect of morality on national
progress. At any rate, if I were a lover of paradox I would quote
Mandeville to show how private vices become public benefits. A butcher
boy recklessly ran over Mr. Keevil, and the result is a decrease of
street accidents and mortality. Statues have been erected to men who
have less benefited the public than that butcher boy.
But accidents will happen, and I fear, as the Lord Mayor truly said at
the first annual meeting of the society held in the Egyptian Hall of the
Mansion House, it is to be feared most of them are really accidents, that
is, things that cannot be prevented. The society aims to prevent
accidents by enforcing existing laws; by petitioning Parliament to amend
them; by prosecuting offenders for furious driving; by granting donations
or loans to sufferers; by compulsory carriage of a lamp on all vehicles,
trimmed and lighted after sunset; by compulsory use of brake-power; and
by stationing the society’s mounted and other officers in the leading
thoroughfares of the metropolis, and other towns, to check and pursue
offenders, and to enforce the claims of the society. At its first
meeting we had an array of elderly peers and distinguished persons, that
was really overpowering. One reverend speaker looked quite pathetic, as,
with an arm in a sling, he narrated how he had been the victim of a
street accident. Let it not be thought that I am inclined to write of
the reverend gentleman and the society with levity. I, too, have
suffered. The other night in the fog, in a street-crossing, I
experienced a disagreeable sensation on the side of my head—which
fortunately nature has made thick enough for ordinary wear and tear—and
in the gloaming found that a cab had driven up against me. Fortunately,
I escaped with a slight contusion, but it would have been a sad thing for
my small home circle had it been a serious matter. Alas! to men every
day accidents occur that are serious; and there are women white with
terror, and children struck dumb with an undefined sense of impending
ill, as the news comes to them that the husband and father is in the
hospital. Sometimes the agony is prolonged, as they do not even learn
that; and who can tell the bitterness as the weary hours of the night
pass away and the cold gray of morn reappears, as the watchful ear tries
to fancy in every sound of the passing footstep the return of one never
to come home more? By all means let us, if we can, prevent street
accidents. Life is not so bright, earth is not so full of joy, that we
may neglect, when an opportunity occurs, to save one breaking heart, to
prevent one solitary tear.
Sir Arthur Helps, just before his death, published another of his popular
volumes, “Friends in Council,” in which certain friends—men of the world
and of high position—are supposed to discuss the several problems of the
day. The scene is laid in a villa on the banks of the Thames. The host
is Sir John Ellesmere—not Mr. Milverton. The subject is “Social
Pressure,” a subject which may certainly be said to come home to our
businesses and bosoms. The aim of all the speeches is how we are to be
comfortable; and, as citizens of this great city, as was to be expected,
London occupies the chief place in their thoughts, is referred to in all
the arguments—in short, points the moral and adorns the tale. Milverton
reads an essay on the subject, which lays it down as an indisputable
truth that one of the greatest evils of modern life is the existence of
great towns. The metropolis is pointed out as an illustration. First we
are told the loss of animal power is enormous. Four or five hundred
horses are carried to the knacker’s yard each week in London. After a
day’s business it is a pleasure to take a walk in the country; but, it is
asked, Who can do that in London, where there are, in several directions,
ten continuous miles of houses? Then, as to the pleasures of society,
these are destroyed by the immense extent of the metropolis. Even the
largest houses are not, relatively speaking, large enough for the town in
which they are situated. As regards questions of health, Dr. Arnott,
whom Sir Arthur terms one of the greatest sanitary reformers of the age,
remarked that though London is a place where the rate of mortality is not
exceedingly high, yet it is a place where nobody except butchers’ boys
enjoy perfect health—the full state of health that they are capable of
enjoying.
In spite of the somewhat extreme notions of the “Friends,” who seem to
forget that men are driven into cities by the necessity which compels
most of them to earn their daily bread, it must be admitted that in the
question of air they have hit a blot. The first article of food, namely,
fresh air, is that which is least under the command of man. Mr.
Milverton says there is no danger of London being starved for want of
animal food. There is more and more danger every year of its health
being diminished from the want of a supply of fresh air. It is stated,
in confirmation of this fact, that every year the hospital surgeons in
London find it more difficult to cure wounds and injuries of all kinds to
the human body, on account, it is supposed, of the growing impurity of
the London air. This bad air kills off the cows. A London cow does not
last a third part of the time one does in the country. On this head much
more might have been said. The author might have referred to the
mournful fate of the fine cattle, who, recently, on the field of their
triumph, the Smithfield Club Show, found, not laurels and rewards, but a
grave, in consequence of the fog. We read that that famous man, Count
Rumford, used to estimate the number of millions of chaldrons of coals
which were suspended in the atmosphere of London, and to dwell upon the
mischief which was caused to furniture by the smoke when it descended.
But there are other special causes of injury, such as dust and chemical
emanations of all kinds. The result is that everything in such a city as
London soon loses all bloom and freshness, and, indeed, is rapidly
deteriorated. The more beautiful the thing, the more swift and fatal is
this deterioration. The essayist calculates the injury of property in
London, caused, not by reasonable wear and tear, but by the result of the
agglomeration of too many people upon one spot of ground, as not less
than three or four millions of pounds per annum. It is to be feared the
estimate is not exaggerated.
There is a further illustration. Sir Rutherford Alcock, as we all know,
represented our interests in China. While there he visited the Chinese
Wall, and brought back two specimens from it in the way of bricks. These
bricks must have been many centuries old, but they had kept their form
and betrayed no signs of decay in that atmosphere. Sir Rutherford put
these two bricks out in the balcony of his house in London. This was
about two years ago. One of these bricks has already gone to pieces,
being entirely disintegrated by the corrosive influence of the London
atmosphere.
In another way we also suffer. Certain kinds of architecture are out of
place in London, says our essayist: “All that is delicate and refined is
so soon blurred, defaced, and corroded by this cruel atmosphere, that it
is a mockery and a delusion to attempt fine work.” There ought to be a
peculiar kind of architecture for such a metropolis—large, coarse, and
massive, owning neither delicacy nor refinement, and not admitting minute
description of any kind. And, again, that coarse work requires to be
executed in the hardest material, otherwise the corrosion is so great as
to cause the need for constant repair.
Another danger is pointed out in the following anecdote. At a former
time, when this country was threatened with an invasion of cholera, the
speaker (Milverton) was one of a committee of persons appointed by
Government supposed to have some skill in sanitary science. “We found,”
he remarks, “that a most deadly fever had originated from the premises of
one of the greatest vendors of oysters in the centre of the metropolis.
Attached to his premises there was a large subterranean place where he
deposited his oyster shells; this place was connected with the sewers.
The small portion of animal matter left in the under shells became
putrescent; and from the huge mass of them that had accumulated in that
subterranean place there finally arose a stench of the most horrible
nature, which came up through all the neighbouring gratings, and most
probably into some of the neighbouring houses.”
My readers need not be alarmed. Such a nuisance would not be permitted
now; and as oysters are getting dearer and scarcer every day, it is to be
questioned whether these shells will be ever again in sufficient numbers
as to form a putrid and pernicious heap. But that the air is polluted by
noxious substances and trades is one of the greatest and most pressing
evils of the ever-threatening perils of such a Babylon as that in which
we live. We suggest, advisedly, the removal of all noxious trades from
London, in spite of all that the political economists can say to the
contrary. This, however, is of course but a small part of the question.
The main object is to see what can be done to render this vast
agglomeration of animate and inanimate beings less embarrassing and
injurious. The first thing that must occur to almost every mind is the
necessity for preserving open spaces, and even of creating them, a
necessity of which the Corporation of London is at any rate aware.
There is more of novelty in the following: “Another evil of great towns
is noise. There is the common proverb that half the world does not know
how the other half lives, which, perhaps, would be a more effective
saying if the word ‘suffers’ were substituted for ‘lives.’ It is
probable that there is no form of human suffering which meets with less
sympathy or regard from those who do not suffer from it, than the
suffering caused by noise. The man of hard, healthy, well-strung nerves
can scarcely imagine the real distress which men of sensitive nerves
endure from ill-regulated noise—how they literally quiver and shiver
under it. Now, of course, the larger the town, the more varied and the
more abundant is the noise in it. Even the domestic noises are dreadful
to a man of acute nervous sensibility.”
In the City we have done much to remove this evil. The asphalte pavement
has wrought wonders; the police have been also efficacious in putting a
stop to some of our roughest and most discordant cries; and yet there is
a volume of noise, ever rising up and filling the air, which must shorten
many a life, and which must be a permanent source of misery. There are
few of us who have not realised what Sir Arthur Helps describes as the
terrors and horrors of ill-regulated noise, or have not wondered that so
much intellectual work is done so well as it is in these great cities.
Now that Sir Arthur has called attention to the subject, it may be other
people will think it worth consideration.
Damascus and Babylon are referred to for the purpose of drawing a
comparison to the disadvantage of London. Babylon, we are told, had in
its densest parts what is deficient in London. Babylon contained within
its walls land sufficient for agricultural purposes, to enable the
inhabitants of the city to be fed by those resources during a siege.
Well, of course, that is quite out of question as regards London. Then
comes Damascus, which, “from the presence of large gardens, forms a most
pleasing contrast to London and other large cities;” but Damascus has the
plague, and that London, with all its magnitude, escapes. Then we are
told London is built so badly that were it to be abandoned by its
population it would fall during that time into a state of ruin which
would astonish the world. This, it is to be feared, is true of the
suburbs, where builders are allowed to scamp their work just as they
please, but certainly cannot be said of the City, where there is proper
superintendence and most vigilant care. Another evil to which the
“Friends” refer, is the absence of raised buildings, partially covered
in, which should enable those in the neighbourhood to take exercise with
freedom both from bitter winds and driving rains; in fact, an elevated
kind of cloister—where it is suggested recreation and amusement might be
provided, especially of a musical kind. It is to be feared space is too
valuable for this in the City; and, until our roughs are educated under
the new School Board, we know no part of the metropolis where such a
thing is practicable, even though, as hinted, the attractions of such a
place would counteract those of the gin palace. There was a Piazza in
Regent Street, which was removed on account of the shelter it gave to
improper characters. One suggestion is made, which is really
practicable, and which would be a great boon to Londoners. Ellesmere
wishes that he were a Lord of the Woods and Forests, as, if he were, he
would add to Kew Gardens the eight hundred acres now lying waste between
them and Richmond; he wants a vegetable-garden there, and a
recreation-ground for the people, and the ground, he argues, is admirably
adapted for such purposes.
Ah! these poor Londoners. They fare but poorly at the hands of the
“Council.” “Hail a cab in any part of London where there is a large
stream of passers-by, you will observe that several grown-up persons and
a large number of boys will stop to see you get in the cab. That very
commonplace transaction has some charm for them—their days being passed
in such continuous dulness.” Thus, says one speaker: “At Dresden or
Munich, on their holidays, the whole population flock out to some
beautiful garden a mile or two from the town, hear good music, imbibe
fresh air, and spend only a few pence in those humble but complete
pleasures;” and then this picture is contrasted with that of the head of
the family here, who spends his holiday at the neighbouring gin-palace
round the corner. Certainly this is a very unfair comparison, as anyone
knows who visits our public gardens and parks and health resorts on the
occasion of a national holiday. There is another picture, which it is to
be feared is more common. It tells of a sanitary reformer who noticed
how a young woman who had come from the country and was living in some
miserable city-court or alley, made, for a time, great efforts to keep
that court or alley clean. But gradually, day by day, the efforts of
that poor woman were less and less vigorous, until in a few weeks she
became accustomed to and contented with the state of squalor which
surrounded her, and made no effort to remove it. It is true, as
Milverton remarks: “We in London subside into living contentedly amidst
dirt, and seeing our books, our pictures, our other works of art, and our
furniture become daily more dirty, dusty, and degenerate.”
Our grandfathers lived in the City, and were glad to do so. It is a pity
one has to waste so much time travelling backward and forward between
one’s shop and country house, and office and one’s home, but if you can’t
get fresh air in the City—if you can’t rear children in its atmosphere—if
its soot is fatal to your health—if its fogs carry one off to a premature
grave—if its noises wear out your nerves—one has no alternative. Is it a
dream to look forward to a time when beggars and rogues shall disappear
from its streets—when it shall be the home of a peaceful, virtuous, and
enlightened community—when in the summer-time as you look up you will be
able to see the sun—when you will be able to drink pure water—when,
within the sound of Bow Bells, you shall be able to live to a good old
age—and when, on the Sabbath, its churches and chapels, now empty of
worshippers, shall be filled with devout men and women? Or is it to go
on daily becoming more gorgeous to the eye and more desolate to the
heart? Alas! it seems nothing but a deluge can save the City, and as
much now as ever the wearied citizen will have to sing:
Oh, well may poets make a fuss
In summer time, and sigh _O rus_.
And ask,
What joy have I in June’s return?
My feet are parched; my eyeballs burn;
I scent no flowery gust.
But faint the flagging Zephyr springs,
With dry Macadam on its wings,
And turns me dust to dust.