(_BEING SOME EXTRACTS FROM THE GLOOMY OUTLOOKER'S DIARY._)
[Illustration: _Old Sol_. "Happy New Year, Mr. Punch!"
_Mr. P._ "Hope we shall see something more of you in future!"]
_January_.--Continuation of "good old-fashioned winter." London
"snowed up." Locomotion by Hansom drawn by four drayhorses, the
fare from Charing Cross to Bayswater being £2 15s. Milk, 10s. the
half-pint, meat unprocurable. Riot of Dukes at the Carlton to secure
the last mutton chop on the premises, suppressed by calling out the
Guards. People in Belgravia burn their banisters for want of coals.
The Three per Cents go down to 35.
_February_.--Railway incursion into the centre of the Metropolis
makes progress. Sir EDWARD WATKIN gets his line through Lords, crosses
Regent's Park, comes down Bond Street, and secures a large centre
terminus in the Green Park, with a frontage of a quarter of a mile in
Piccadilly.
_March_.--Football atrocities on the increase. A match is played
at the Oval between the Jaw Splitting Rovers and the Spine Cracking
Wanderers, in which nine are left dead on the field, and fifteen are
carried on stretchers to the nearest hospital.
_April_.--Increase of danger from electricity. A couple of large
metropolitan hotels catching fire from over-heated wires, nineteen
waiters, twenty-three policemen, and fifty-five members of the fire
brigade getting entangled in them in their efforts to extinguish
the flames, are killed on the spot, much to the satisfaction of the
holders of gas shares.
_May_.--The "Capital and Labour" Question reaches an acute stage. The
"Unemployed Other People's Property Rights League" being patted on
the back by philanthropists, formulate their programme, and seize the
Stock Exchange and the Mansion House.
_June_.--The "Capital and Labour" Question reaching a still acuter
stage, 20,000 unemployed East End Lodgers break into the Bank of
England, and give a banquet to the LORD MAYOR and Corporation
to celebrate the event, at which Mr. Sheriff AUGUSTUS HARRIS, in
returning thanks for the "Arts and Sciences," says he thinks "the
takings" of their hosts must have been "enormous."
_July_.--Results of Gen. BOOTH's "Darkest England" scheme. Triumphant
return of the Submerged Tenth, who having enjoyed themselves
immensely, have come back to the Slums with a view to having another
innings at "the way out."
_August_.--The Authorities at the Naval Exhibition wishing to
stimulate the public taste for the undertaking, fire one of the
hundred-ton guns which, "by some oversight" being loaded, sends a
shell into the City, which brings down the dome of St. Paul's, but,
bursting itself, lays Chelsea in ruins, and causes the appearance of
a letter in the _Times_ from Lord GEORGE HAMILTON, saying that the
matter will be "the subject of a searching inquiry" by his Department.
_September_.--A few Dukes in the Highlands, using several Hotchkiss
guns with their guests asked down to the shooting, exceed the known
figures of any previous _battue_ to such an extent that birds sell
in Bond Street at _3d_. a brace, with the result that the whole of
Scotland is said to be completely cleared of game for the next seven
years.
_October_.--The great strike of everybody commences. Nothing to be got
anywhere. Several Noblemen and Members of Parliament meet the "food"
crisis by organising an Upper-class Co-operative Society, and bring
up their own cattle to London. Being, however, unable to kill them
professionally without the aid of a butcher, they blow them up with
gunpowder, and divide them with a steam-scythe, for which proceedings
they are somewhat maliciously prosecuted by the Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
_November_.--The Strike continuing, and times being very bad, several
Peers take advantage of the 5th of the month, and make a tour of their
immediate neighbourhoods in their own arm-chairs, thereby realising a
very handsome sum in halfpence from a not unsympathetic public.
_December_.--First signs of a probable second edition of a "good
old-fashioned Christmas" recognised. General panic in consequence.
Attempt to lynch the Clerk of the Weather at Greenwich, only
frustrated by the appearance of a strong force of Police. 1891
terminates in gloomy despair.
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