LONDON IN A FOG.

Inangahua Times, Volume II, 17 May 1880, Page 2

LONDON IN A FOG.

In the early part of this year London was visited by a series of fogf of unprecedented density and persistency. A London correspondent writes :•—** What we Londoners have had in onr minds all last week has been the fog. There have been great historical fogs in my time. One was twenty years ago, at night, when it whs impossible, standing in Portland* street by a lamp»post to see the tamp over head. Another was about three or four years ago, when the cattle died at the cattle show. Bat none of those ap. proached the fog one morning last week. Walking across St James's P irk, a place I tbonght I knew as well as my ledroom, I could only find my way by stooping down at intervals to make sure my feet were on the asphalte parth. The traffic was nearly all stopped for the time, and business was at a stand-still. The eon* sequences were much more serious than inconvenience. The air was overloaded with smoke, which produced sickness and headache. The mortality at the hospitals rose remarkably, and the dead houses became oyer full. The accidents, too, as might be expected, were largely increased. It was impossible to avoid thinking abont the future. If London is to grow at its present alarming rate, and if coals are | still to be burnt as they are now, without 1 consumption of smoke, science will have to provide posterity with some means of self-defence, as Tyndall's respirator will become as necessary as a great coat.** A few days ago we recorded how the Duke of Teck lost himself in the fog near St. Jamen, and actually had to pass the night in a cab. & similar experience, it will be seen from the following paragraph in the World, befell another nobleman :— "On the last night of January, 1880, when the metropolis was wrapped in the blackest tog ever remembered. Lord Dunmore found himself benighted in Belgravesquare. Groping his way round and round, he at last *tumbled upon a foMorn four-wheeler. Honest cabby would undertake no voyage of discovery ; so together they spent the night, and towards six in the morning Lord Dun* more made his way home, nons the worse, I am glad to say, for his unpleasant experience." Another amusing episode of the fog is related in the same paper. Who was the eminent journalist (says the writer) who returning, or rather trying to return, home in the marrellous black fog on the Opening night of the new Haymarket Theatre, offered himself to a policeman in Tiafalgarwquare, as * positively the man who committed Burton»cresenk murder ; no mistake this time f He was a nervous creature, and had conceived this happy thought as yielding a last chance of finding bis way somewhere, and being taken care of till Monday tncrning. No luclr, however. ' Won't do !' replied the intel* ligent officer. ' You/re the fifteenth tonight,'