(_Meteorological forecast for the Month._)
_6th._--Queen's Weather continues. Raspberry crop fails. Strawberries
sold by auction in Covent Garden Market, and fetch two guineas each.
_13th._--Queen's Weather still continues. All the grass in Hyde Park
turns brown, and suddenly disappears. Vegetables generally sell at
famine prices. Riot of Dukes attempting to secure a bundle of late
asparagus from a fashionable West End greengrocer's, suppressed by the
police.
_17th._--Queen's Weather as settled as ever. Great drought commences.
London Water Companies cut off their supply. Five o'clock tea in
Belgravia made from boiled soda-water. Apollinaris supplied in buckets,
for washing purposes, at the rate of twenty guineas the dozen pint
bottles.
_21st._--Queen's Weather showing no signs of departure, fifteen
umbrella-manufacturers go through the Bankruptcy Court, and commit
suicide. Dust in London becomes intolerable. A Nobleman in Mayfair has
Piccadilly watered with BASS'S India Pale Ale.
_27th._--Queen's Weather established. The Thames runs dry between
Vauxhall and Westminster. The SPEAKER gives a garden-party in the bed of
the river. _Cafe noir_, made of ink, served as a refreshment.
_31st._--Queen's Weather still continuing, seventeen ginger-beer
manufacturers who have become _millionnaires_ are raised to the
Peerage. The LORD MAYOR goes off his head, and, imagining that he is the
Old Pump at Aldgate, is removed, by general consent, to Colney Hatch.
* * * * *