The Annual Blockade, or Great Plague of London, by the Commissioners of
Sewers and Improvements, will take place this month. The nearest way
from St. Paul's to Temple Bar will be through Farringdon Street,
Smithfield, across Gray's Inn Lane, Theobald's Road (Holborn is also
closed), Red Lion Square, Queen Street, and Drury Lane. Endless rows
with cabmen in consequence, who object to eightpence for the distance.
General emigration of the British, who will be found everywhere, in the
language of the month, in large coveys, strong on the wing, and offering
excellent sport to foreigners. It is probable that the last man about
town will commit suicide in the centre of Leicester Square; to explore
which hitherto unknown locality an expedition will be fitted out, now
that the new street has opened a facility of communication with the
interior.
The stars portend the ultimate death of Bartholomew Fair, Esquire, after
several years of wasting decline, the result of injuries received some
time ago from the corporation of London. He will lie in state in
Smithfield for three days, on a handsome bier of gilt gingerbread, and
under a canopy of show-canvas, with incense burning round him from
altars of sausage-stoves. The Black Wild Indian, the Fair Circassian,
the Yorkshire Giant, the Welsh Dwarf, the Fat Boy, the Living Skeleton,
and the Ghost from Richardson's, will in turn act as mourners.
ANNOYING RAILWAY ACCIDENT.—The train will break down in the middle of a
two-mile tunnel, and will not be discovered until pushed out by the
next.