One hundred years ago
Great Britain has been visited with what the Americans call a 'cold snap'. The frost has been continuous since Saturday, and since Sunday has been severe. If it continues, the suffering of the poor will be very great, thousands being thrown out of employ, with coal at its dearest point for the year. The old, too, will die off rapidly, a really low temperature lowering vitality much more seriously than chilly weather or sharp wind. Some of the newspapers, we see, think the weather very pleasant and seasonal, and pour out the usual 'Dickens-and-water' about the joys of winter; but with the roads liable to be made impassable by snow, his pipes bursting, his feeble friends dying off, and he himself craving for the equable warmth which English grates do not secure, the middle-aged Londoner may be forgiven if he votes Christmas an imposter, and Midsummer the true joy-giver. Nobody in London is in frost, except skaters, who really happy are warm; and plundering plumbers, eager for their prey.
Spectator, 6 December 1879
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