It was in the evening of the 24th of January that the first force of
the snowstorm swept London. There had been no sign of any abatement in
the gripping frost, but the wind had suddenly shifted to the east, and
almost immediately snow had commenced to fall. But as yet there was no
hint of the coming calamity.
A little after midnight the full force of the gale was blowing. The
snow fell in powder so fine that it was almost imperceptible, but
gradually the mass deepened until at daybreak it lay some eighteen
inches in the streets. Some of the thoroughfares facing the wind were
swept bare as a newly reaped field, in others the drifts were four or
five feet in height.
A tearing, roaring, blighting wind was still blowing as the grey day
struggled in. The fine snow still tinkled against glass and brick. By
nine o'clock hundreds of telephone wires were broken. The snow and
the force of the wind had torn them away bodily. As far as could be
ascertained at present the same thing had happened to the telegraphic
lines. At eleven o'clock nothing beyond local letters had been
delivered, and the postal authorities notified that no telegrams could
be guaranteed in any direction outside the radius. There was nothing
from the Continent at all.
Still, there appeared to be no great cause for alarm. The snow must
cease presently. There was absolutely no business doing in the City,
seeing that three-fourths of the suburban residents had not managed to
reach London by two o'clock. An hour later it became generally known
that no main line train had been scheduled at a single London terminus
since midday.
Deep cuttings and tunnels were alike rendered impassable by drifted
snow.
But the snow would cease presently; it could not go on like this. Yet
when dusk fell it was still coming down in the same grey whirling
powder.
That night London was as a city of the dead. Except where the force
of the gale had swept bare patches, the drifts were high--so high in
some cases that they reached to the first floor windows. A half-hearted
attempt had been made to clear the roadways earlier in the day, but
only two or three main roads running north and south, and east and west
were at all passable.
Meanwhile the gripping frost never abated a jot. The thermometer stood
steadily at 15° below freezing even in the forenoon; the ordinary tweed
clothing of the average Briton was sorry stuff to keep out a wind like
that. But for the piercing draught the condition of things might have
been tolerable. London had experienced colder weather so far as degrees
went, but never anything that battered and gripped like this. And still
the fine white powder fell.
After dark, the passage from one main road to another was a real peril.
Belated stragglers fought their way along their own streets without
the slightest idea of locality, the dazzle of the snow was absolutely
blinding. In sheltered corners the authorities had set up blazing fires
for the safety of the police and public. Hardly a vehicle had been seen
in the streets for hours.
At the end of the first four and twenty hours the mean fall of snow had
been four feet. Narrow streets were piled up with the white powder.
Most of the thoroughfares on the south side of the Strand were mere
grey ramparts. Here and there people could be seen looking anxiously
out of upper windows and beckoning for assistance. Such was the
spectacle that London presented at daybreak on the second day.
It was not till nearly midday of the 26th of January that the downfall
ceased. For thirty-six hours the gale had hurled its force mercilessly
over London. There had been nothing like it in the memory of man,
nothing like it on record. The thin wrack of cloud cleared and the sun
shone down on the brilliant scene.
A strange, still, weird London. A white deserted city with a hardy
pedestrian here and there, who looked curiously out of place in a town
where one expects to see the usual toiling millions. And yet the few
people who were about did not seem to fit into the picture. The crunch
of their feet on the crisp snow was an offence, the muffled hoarseness
of their voices jarred.
London woke uneasily with a sense of coming disaster. By midday the
continuous frost rendered the snow quite firm enough for traffic. The
curious sight of people climbing out of their bedroom windows and
sliding down snow mountains into the streets excited no wonder. As
to the work-a-day side of things that was absolutely forgotten. For
the nonce Londoners were transformed into Laplanders, whose first and
foremost idea was food and warmth.
So far as could be ascertained the belt of the blizzard had come from
the East in a straight line some thirty miles wide. Beyond St. Albans
there was very little snow, the same remark applying to the South from
Redhill. But London itself lay in the centre of a grip of Arctic,
ice-bound country, and was almost as inaccessible to the outside world
as the North Pole itself.
There was practically no motive power beyond that of the underground
railways, and most of the lighting standards had been damaged by the
gale; last calamity of all, the frost affected the gas so that evening
saw London practically in darkness.
But the great want of many thousands was fuel. Coal was there at the
wharfs, but getting it to its destination was quite another thing. It
was very well for a light sleigh and horse to slip over the frozen
snow, but a heavily laden cart would have found progression an absolute
impossibility. Something might have been done with the electric trams,
but all overhead wires were down.
In addition to this, the great grain wharfs along the Thames were
very low. Local contractors and merchants had not been in the least
frightened by the vagaries of Mr. Silas X. Brett; they had bought
"short," feeling pretty sure that sooner or later their foresight would
be rewarded.
Therefore they had been trading from hand to mouth. The same policy
had been pursued by the small "rings" of wholesale meat merchants who
supply pretty well the whole of London with flesh food. The great
majority of the struggling classes pay the American prices and get
American produce, an enormous supply of which is in daily demand.
Here Silas X. Brett had come in again. Again the wholesale men had
declined to make contracts except from day to day.
Last and worst of all, the Thames--the chief highway for supplies--was,
for the only time in the memory of living man, choked with ice below
Greenwich.
London was in a state of siege as close and gripping as if a foreign
army had been at her gates. Supplies were cut off, and were likely to
be for some days to come.
The price of bread quickly advanced to ninepence the loaf, and it was
impossible to purchase the cheapest meat under two shillings per pound.
Bacon and flour, and such like provisions, rose in a corresponding
ratio; coal was offered at £2 per ton, with the proviso that the
purchaser must fetch it himself.
Meanwhile, there was no cheering news from the outside--London seemed
to be cut off from the universe. It was as bad as bad could be, but the
more thoughtful could see that there was worse to follow.