THE GREAT SNOWSTORM OF LONDON.

Observer, Volume 2, Issue 31, 16 April 1881, Page 328

THE GREAT SNOWSTORM OF LONDON.

A GLACIAL EPOCH — COMMUNICATION WITH THE COUNTRY SUSPENDED — TERRIBLE SUFFERINGS OF THE PEOPLE — NO FOOD—THOUSANDS DIE OF STARVATION — SCENES IN THE STREETS, &C. Jan nun/ 28th, 1911. ] My dear Son, — I do not -wonder at your interest in the great, snow-storm of 1881. 'It is now almost forgotten, but it was the nearest approach to a cataclysm in English history that has ever oecured from any natural cause ; and even at this distance of time, it is with a certain shrinking that I recall the memories of that month. London was partially isolated for two weeks, and completely isolated for two more, and might in another ten days have been depopulated. The snow began to fall on Tuesday, January 18th, ISSI, and continued falling with fury for three days, accompanied by violent winds, which heaped it together in every railway-cutting, broad street, or space open enough to allow of heavy drifts. When the Londoners who had kept indoors while the storm lasted ventured out, they found four solid feet of snow everywhere, and in all drifts from ten to fourteen feet, while the thermometer fell to 16°, and steadily remained there. By great exertions the pathways and a narrow "way in each street were cleared, and as all trallic, except that of sheer necessity, was suspended, this proved sufficient, though prices began from the first to ascend rapidly. Seven days afterwards, however — on January 25th — another severe fall oecured, undoing much that had been done ; and on February Ist another, which finished the work, and completely isolated London. The Thames was frozen too thickly for ships to come up, the railway managers gave up the effort to send trains, foot-passage was ♦This most interesting article, from the pen of the famous author of the " Battle of Dorking," appeared in the Spectator of January 29th, immediately niter the snowstorm of the previous week. It is, of coarse, intended to show what might and probably would eventuate if a prolonged season of snow and fcrost wore but to cut off communication between London and the ports.

out of the_ question, and, except an occasional sledge, driven with some danger on account of the gaps and unevennesses caused hy the pressure of the wind, London was isolated like a village from the provinces and the world. The energy shown in clearances was not at iii>t extreme, every Traffic Manager believing that next day would see a thaw, and afterwards the renewed falls of snow made movement for heavy convoys, except, by tunnelling, impossible. From first to last the railways were rather torpid, partly and chiefly from the influence of a never-dying hope — a long obstruction from snow being nearly unknown — but partly also from reluctance to expend money on the enormous scale required. At the very last the Government engaged armies of labourers, and executed some extraordinary though useless works ; but before that, things" had come to a very bad pass indeed. A nation of three millions of men, growing and producing nothing in the way of food, was shut up on twelve square miles of' stony ground. At first there was little alarm, for the resources of London were believed to be boundless, but on the thirteen tli day an old merchant published a note of warning. He showed that very little provisions had come in since the storm, and that the tendency of trade for years had been to make the food-stocks of London low. .Storage was dear, competition sharp, and capital valuable, while the regular means of communication worked, with as little friction and as few interruptions as the great bodies in space, or the works of a finely-made chronometer. Any dealer could obtain any supply of any article from the country or the ports within twelve hours. The distributors, therefore, lived from hand to mouth, importing from outside at the utmost a fortnight's stock, and this, though partially resupplied, had been heavily depleted. Already the supply of fresh vegetables, potatoes excepted, was at an end, and the potatoes would only last three days more. He recommended, therefore, that Government should appropriate all provisions, and that London should be rationed like Paris in the great siege of 1870. The editor who published the letter ridiculed the plan, as contrary to political economy, and his readers smiled; but there was an uneasiness from that moment in the public mind, which speedily deepened into panic. The loss of vegetables was bearable, though severely felt ; but now milk, which had grown scarce and dear, suddenly disappeared. There was no more milk, fresh or condensed, and the children began to suffer. The supply of fish had ended from the first, Billingsgate being emptied in twenty-four hours ; and the demand for meat became so sharp and the price so high, that the remaining cows were slaughtered for their flesh. The butchers began to sell horsellcsh, at first secretly, then oponly ; bread went up to the highest price recorded — Is. 6d. the quartern loaf — a price the poorer labourers could not pay ; and on the fifteenth day the Government, warned by some dangerous bread-riots, by a rapid rise in the death-rate, and by the reports from the workhouses, took, under sanction of Parliament, two great steps. They expropriated all remaining food, taking it into their own possession ; and they took 250,000 men into their employ, at (is. a day, partly as distributors, partly as police. Money had not lost its value, for every one expected an end to flic frost, the strongest, men in London were out of work, and the educated volunteered as inspectors in thousands. Armed with short clubs, and placed in uniform by a simple order to wear a second shirt over their clothes, with a handkerchief for belt, these constables preserved the peace, and so far a^ labour could avail, alleviated the growing misery, which soon became extreme. At first, bread and portions of cooked horse-Mesh were distributed, then bread alone in thinly baked cakes, and then, at last, an indigesfihle paste of half-boiled flour, for a greater misfortune than all had overtaken London. The means of cooking, of supplying light, and of making iires, all failed together. The supply of water never quite stopped till the last day, for the ground and the deep pipes froze slowly, and two mighty hydrants fed wooden aqueducts for two hours a day from the remaining unfrozen water in the Thames. The time, and energy, and health of all women in London were exhausted in getting water ; all sanitary arrangements collapsed, and nothing emerged from the unfiushed sewers, but still no terrible thirst was encountered, except by individuals, till the last few hours ; but there was no fuel or light. Very early in the frost the oil gave out, the supply, even at tripled rates, not being sufficient for ten days ; the very small stock of wood for firing was burnt up, and the coal rose to prices— SOs a ton — utterly beyond the means of the poor. The Gas Companies first lowered their pressure, till their lights were almost useless, then knocked off all private supplies, and finally ceased working altogether. Of candles the use of which had much diminished, the stock did not last six days. The Government appropriated all remaining fuel for cooking, but cooking even once a day for three millions of people is a tremenduous undertaking. The stock got lower and lower, and on the twentythird day it was announced that only raw food could be given out. There was no more firing to be obtained ; the stock in private hands were all gone. The Government took all it could, and on this point, the equal distribution of firing, the feeling of the multitude was so pronounced and so shared by the white-shirted police, that it was impossible to guard private property. Every house suspected of coal or wood, for fires was visited, and it was during I these visits that what of disorder there was— and it was not comparatively very much — occurred. The people were not bad-tempered, rather dogged, and patient of everything except the concealment of fuel, and the batoned police made but short work of any thief. At last the last stores dwindled away, and food was issued uncooked. Then the courage and stolid patience of the people, always disinclined to murmur at any act visibly one of Providence, began to give way. They grew nervous, impatient, and superstitious. Parliament was beset by crowds clamouring for unattainable fire. The churches were filled with never-ending relays of Revivalists, not praying, but lamenting the sins of London ; and shocking scenes of hysteria were enacted, side by side with services of piety and supplication. Monstrous

schemes for pulling down London to burn the timbers were openly brooched. The people, worn with the cold, the excitement, and the low rations, began to be wild with hunger, and felt an unconquerable disgust for the uncooked food, food. Hundreds became delirious. Thousands wandered on the verge of delirium, seeking food long since consumed. The majority were patient, and lay in their bods, or huddled together, reading the small, hand-pressed sheets which did duty for newspapers, and which were full of scientific or wild calculations about weather, reports of horrible occurrences, and, above all, explanations of the death returns. These returns were published daily after the first fortnight, and they mounted, mounted, till the disposal of the dead, under frozen snow, in places where they would not produce pestilence, became a terrible pro-occupation. Burial, except in the snow, Avas soon given up, and later on even removal, so that Government, Avhen the snow vanished, Avas obliged to keep on its army of White-shirts for a Aveek, only to bury the dead. The children Avent first, poor things ; deprived of milk, and sugar, and cooked meal ; then the old, already half-dead from the frost, then the Aveaker men, then the drinking men, and finally, the Avomen, whose patience and comparative exemption from the effects of alcohol had at first seemed to give them strength. The cold, though not too bad to bear, the hunger, Avhich Avas not quite starvation, the unaccustomed, want of necessaries, found out in every one some Aveak place. The people had plenty of clothes, they soon kncAv the Avarmth that second, or third, or fourth shirts Avill giA'e — the practice of the Northern Chinese — and they Avere not frozen ; but they died, died in heaps, every day. By the fifteenth day the .average Avas*2ooo, then 3000, then 5000,' and then it leaped on the twentieth day to 20,000. In the last ten days, Avhen cooked food Avas unprocureable, and there Avas neither fire nor artificial light procurable in London, there perished 200,000 human beings, an awful number, yet not 7 per cent of the population of the great city. Of these, more than two-thirds were children. It Avas calculated aftenvards that half the children over eight perished, and it was this mortality, Avith its special pain and horror, Avhich so fixed the snowstorm in the minds of English-speaking men. The death-rate of London was permanently altered for ten years, the generation Avhich had passed through this trial losing much of its strength, and being cA r er after liable to slaughter under a loav thermometer, or a rush of catarrh. Ido not remember many murders. The people Avere sullen and subinissi\'e, rather than furious ; the Whiteshirts Avere ett'cctiA'c, all suffered alike, and no one at first could give up hope that a few hours might bring relief. When at last the relief came — the thaAV — it came rapidly, the thermometer rising to 4Sdeg., and though there Avas much suffering for many days— still, ordinary, life at once recommenced, and in a feAV Aveeks, all suffering, save the loss of children, was forgotten. The literature of the storm, at one time enormous, can iioav only be studied in the British Museum, and but tAvo permanent relics of the said time remain. The Government still keep together the neuclus of the volunteer police, the Avhite uniformed patrol, who are iioav the universal intermediaries bctAveen the people and the police, Avho are to be found at cA r ery intersection of the more central streets, and aa'lio gather to a signal Avlienevor the regular police need help, and there is a coA'ered line of rails to Gravcsend, so built that it can't be interrupted by snow, and can, therefore, bring coal and oil, and if needful, even corn, from all open ports. So great avcic the sufferings from uncooked food, that direct grants in aid of this seAver railway Avere voted by Parliament and the extinct Metropolitan Board Avitliout resistance ; and the line is iioav one of the most A'aluable arteries of the kingdom, carrying at a slow rate the great mass of heaA'y imports from the sea to London. — Yours,