The weather of the week has been detestable. The frost
set in on the night of Friday, the 11th inst., and during the seven days we have had but one thaw, which lasted only for an hour or two. At 5 p.m. on Monday the thermometer in Hyde Park stood at 20°; on Tuesday, at 6 p.m., it was 25°; on Wednesday, at 9 p.m., it was 24°; and on Thursday, at the same hour, 25°; on Friday, at 7 p.m., it was thawing. In many parts of the country the cold has been of course very much more severe, the thermometer falling at Truro, in the extreme south, to 8°. Snow has fallen heavily all over the North, and in France the railways have been completely blocked, no mails having been received in Paris either on Thursday or Friday. Even the Mar- seilles mail from India has been delayed, and the Parisians are learning to skate. In London the snow has been light, and the streets consequently as slippery as glass, the pavements being cleaned on a system carefully devised to break as many legs as possible. Circulation, however, has not been suspended, and the weekly average of deaths has only increased about 400, chiefly from bronchial disease.
