ALPINE DIUFTS.
Only elder people remember other days when traffic was suspended, and roads quite closed ; and even the oldest cannot quite parallel out of their widest memories some scenes of this winter. In counties conspicuous for deep-cu t lanes, such as Devon and Hertz, the whole snow of the neigh- bourhood accumulated in the roads. I traversed a mile or so of road that ran between fields almost bare and brown. The blizzard had thrown the snow against a flanking hedge, laid some of the leaders across the road and thereupon filled it with snow to the depth of nine and ten feet at the worst spots, but for the rest moulded into hills and valleys, into sierras and crevasses, mimicking a miniature Alps. Gangs of workers—some of them golf-caddies out of their job-'. could not clear more than abOut 200 yards within the day.
The whole picture was a miracle to the younger generation, of whom curiously few either could skate or had ever seen -a skater. It was a pity, for though good ice was not commop, most of the streets offered a respectable surface for skaterp. The skater travelled faster than the walker, or the man with a horse and cart.
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