NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE United Kingdom this week has been locked up in a frost which had on Friday lasted for twenty-four days. The degree of frost has varied to a curious degree, the thermometer at Loughborough, Leicestershire, remaining below zero, while in London it might be said to average 22°; but only a bit of the West has been fairly warm. The Thames has been so frozen that a cart was driven across it at Kingston; the death-rate for the Metropolis has risen beyond usual records ; and not only has the mortality among the old been abnormal, but the suffering among all who have any weakness of the lungs or heart has impaired the general cheerfulness. The charitable have done their duty, and the Poor-law Guardians have met the 'demands on them with liberality, but the misery among the best of the poor, those who will not beg, has been inde- scribable. As to the middle-class, the frost does not injure them, but it fines them heavily for the benefit of plumbers, which is almost more exasperating. English architects seem never to think of a long spell of frost, and English plumbers, who do, carefully provide that it shall bring to their trade as much work as possible. On Friday afternoon the temperature in London rose almost to freezing-point, but there was no sign of a thaw, which the vulgar say will come with the new moon.
