" NO DUST AFTER MICHAELMAS,"
A DOGMA OF THE COMMISSIONERS FOR WATERING THE ROADS OF THE METROPOLIS.
IT is a singular providence that presides over our streets and highways. Up to the end of August, or the middle of September, it gives us rain twice a day ; and lays the dust so accurately, that the fair, fresh issuing from the band-box, may tread the base earth, without so much as incurring a speck on: the ebon of her delicate foot. In September it begins to rain less regularly ; and after Michaelmas, the charioteers " quos enrriculo pulverem collegisse juvat," may travel the entire length of the New Road,with a tail as long as the comet's. The roads and exterior streets of the capital have now, for upwards of three weeks, been incessantly obscured by the clouds which coach after coach raises in such rapid succession, that the conglomeration almost vies with the sand-storm of the De- sert ; and the wayfarers, like spectres shrouded in mists, advance towards you
" per umbram Obscuram, quales primo qui surgere mense Aut videt, aut vidisse putat per nubila lunam."
To perfect the nuisance to the satisfaction of the Commissioners for the Disuse of Water-carts, we want but high winds, such as visit Edina's face a little too roughly. In the Northern British Capital, on the North Bridge, the tartaned fair is oft ravished from your admiring eyes in a whirl of dust and litters, which " Scotia's darling" allows to collect in her less accurate streets. The gritty atoms invade your mouth—you eat more dust than salt; and when the tears, with which you have bewailed the attack of one flight of particles, have well watered the circle underneath the eyes, it is then rough-cast by the invasion of a second. But Edina, though she has abundance of the purest water for domestic uses, has none of a meaner quality for superfluous or exterior cleansings. Here, tap the ground where you will, and up spouts a jet d'eau—rival of those that embellish Versailles. "Why then should we, for weeks, he obliged to go squalid, ourselves and our shrubs, and the gardens that stand at our windows? Do the water-cart people suppose that Providence will comply with their regulations ; and that when their rain ceases, the other rain will begin ; and that if they vote no water-carts after Michaelmas, no dust will after that date presume to collect? We should like to submit to the sapient Commissioners a fair quarto now lying before us ; and request all and several to sign their names to a proposition to the above effect, with their forefingers on the back ; or to request them to survey—modis pal- lentia miris —our box-trees and firs, our myrtles and vine—the spacious gardens of Cockaigne—as thickly coated with dust three Peeks after Michaelmas, as they ever were with hoar-frost in De- cember.
Among vulgar errors he recorded the opinion of the Com- missioners of Water-carts, that there is no dust after Michaelmas ; or that dust after Michaelmas won't rise when disturbed ; or that the gentry being out of town, there is nothing to disturb it, or nobody to be annoyed by its disturbance.
[Mem. On Thursday the 23d of October, Providence sent us rain to wash our squalid shrubs, and lay the dust, after the latter had reigned three weeks and upwards without opposition.]
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