TOPICS of the DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 24, 27 January 1906, Page 11

TOPICS of the DAY.

(Pram Oar Special Correspoaflent.) LONDON, December 35. (Continued from page 9.) THE JOYS OF FOG. It was a great joke with the Unionist papers this week that the heaviest fog of the year settled upon London on the day that the new Liberal Gerverninent took office. If they were on the lookout for coincidences of the kitnd, it is strange that they omitted to remark that no sooner did the King send for Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman than the roof of Charing Cross station tumbled in! As regards fog, it recalled a dreadful week at Christinas-time last year, when the metropolis was shrouded in Egyptian darkness from morn till night, and from night till morning, for several days on end. This time the fog commenced on Sunday, and lasted until late on Monday night. It was heavy enough to plunge the traffic of London into chaos, imagine the feeling of walking along a footpath with nothing but a blank wall of fog where the road should be. You could hear the vehicles rolling past in the darkneas, but for all you could see of them they might have been phostly, immaterial chariots from the spirit-world. Headlights served only to accentuate the darkness', and the arclamps in the street glimmered feebly as glow-worms. Unless you knew your I§cality like a book, you were almost certain to be lost in the fog. The only way to walk through the streets was to hug the nearest wall and count the turnings until you came, to the right one —and even then you were liable to miss a turning in the darkness. As for leaving the pavement to cross the street, it ■was like stepping off the edge of the. world! .;.,. ..

A fog-bound city is like a land of dreams. It is familiar, and yet unreal; substantial, yet ghostly. The din of the traffic, deadened by the fog, sinks to a dull whisper, and no sound of footsteps echoes on the pavements. Figures emerge silently a,nd suddenly from the gloom ahead, and are swallowed up as suddenly in the wall of darkness behind you. It is also the harvest-time of the footpad, and the purgatory of the timid wayfarer. Sand-baggers were abroad in one part of South London on Monday, and many petty thefts have been recorded. It was no uncommon experience for a skinny hand to emerge from the darkness by the open front of a butcherls shop, deftly unhook a joint, and vanish with it into nothingness. Such thefts were impossible to trace. But the fog brought out the kindness as well as the meanness of human nature. People helped each other to find their way, or to cross a crowded thoroughfare, ana cheerfully gave up their own errands to soothe a frightened child or help a lady in distress. There is nothing like a fog for breaking down the barriers of reserve and conventionality. Perhaps the best instance one can give is the picture of Mr Balfour, the late Prime Minister, fog-bound at St. Pancras station, munching butterscotch from a penny-in-the-slot machine. CHAOS AND DARKNESS. Strangers clubbed together for mutual protection and guidance, and one came across many of these "tourist parties , ' picking their way across London from the railway termini, led by the light of an improvised torch. The "link-boy" is a mediaeval relic that comes into fas'Mon with every dense fog. Even pieces of brown paper soaked in oil sufficed to earn money for the torch-bearers in the city of dreadful night.

But it was in the traffic of the streets, and at the railway stations, that chaos reigned supreme. Every cross-a-oad was a deadly labyrinth for the drivers, and 'buses and cabs by the dozen lost themselves hopelessly in the fog. Some wandered about aimlessly for hours, trying to find their bearings; others gave up the task altogether and collected in long lines, unable to go onward or back. The Cabinet Ministers who went to Buckingham Palace in the afternoon to be sworn in had to be led home by their drivers. It is not to be inferred that His Majesty's hospitality had been too much for them. The trouble was that it was impossible to drive a carriage or a cab in such a fog, and the only way of getting along was to get down and lead the horses by the head. The train services —as usual in these conditions—were terribly disorganised. The long-distance expresses were mostly two hours late i in starting, and on the suburban lines people took hours to do what would ordinarily be a twenty minutes' or half hour's journey. Altogether it was a racketing, chaotic, nerve-shaking sort of experience. The question of what the fog meant to London in loss of trade and other financial damage is interesting. The cost of Monday's experience is estimated by the "Express" at £ 350,000, of which the cMef items are as under: Los'i to tradesmen £100,000, loss in wagf<s £80,000, railways £30,000, "buses and tramways £ 10,000, cabmen £2000, exira light £10,000, restaurants and £40,000, extra police £500.

Apparently the only points th*t can "be raised in defence of a London fog are that it provides" a "nrsterat c' escusl for lazy people who are late in- reaching their business, and for husbands late in returning home, and that it provides the artistic eye with picturesque effects in the -way of street scenes. The lazy folk and the frivolous, we may rule out of court, and as for £he picturesqueness, is it worth the m<>ney? Most a» suredly not.