London has been still suffering all the week under the
influenza, which strikes establishments with unexplained capriciousness. The Palace at Westminster suffers heavily; some sixty or seventy Peers and Commoners being "down" with the malady,—including Lord Rosebery, whose attack was a bad one, and Mr. Balfour; and so does the Bank of England, the General Post-Office, the Stock Exchange, and one at least of the great railways. On the other hand, some very large establishments, like Marshall and Snelgrove's, escape almost entirely. The death-rate is not very high; but the disease has a spite against known people, and it leaves with its victims a liability to an astonishingly rapid form of pneumonia. The doctors have not yet settled its cause, any more than they have the cause of measles, but the" caprice "of the pestilence points to a malarious origin, or to some defects in ventilation. The people who
live in the open air seem to suffer least. There are signs that it is passing, but there is no security yet, and though the best treatment is exceedingly easy, being simply bed, it is also exasperatingly inconvenient. At Lord Selborne's it is said all the usual inmates of the house were in bed, or fit only for bed, at once.
