NEWS OF THE WEEK.
A HEAVY snowstorm broke over Landon on Tuesday night, filling the streets to the depth of four or five inches, a depth which, wherever the snow could drift, was speedily multiplied by five. So heavy was the fall that traffic on all the lines was impeded, the mail from the North was three hours late, the Windsor 9 o'clock train was three hours doing twenty miles, the train from Beckenham was six hours on a forty-minute trip, and the trains from Addiscombe were withdrawn altogether. Within London locomotkil was for some hours almost impossible. The stations were thronged with women unable to proceed or return, the omni- buses could scarcely move, the cabs retreated, and walking was a dangerous experiment. Of course the self-governing organization of London broke down at once. Thousands of men were eager to work for 75. 6d. a day, but the Vestries were as imbecile as usual, the contractors did not see how duty was to pay them, and as the snow fell, there it heaped. In any other capital in Europe it would have been removed in a night, but though the footways were cleared after a fashion on Thursday, the sides of the streets were on Friday still heaped with snow, and the thaw will convert London into an ocean of slush. The mere cost to tradesmen in loss of business must have been scores of thousands of pounds, but they have not the energy even to remon- strate. It is a pity Parliament does not sit in midwinter. If it did, the whole of our miserable Vestries would be swept away next year, and replaced by a scientific and responsible administration. At present nobody is even certain who ought to be kicked.
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