TROPICAL LONDON.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 980, 21 September 1881, Page 1 (Supplement)

TROPICAL LONDON.

Residents in' especially in the regionh most kffect/d with prevailing high temperature, will, perhaps smile wheii they hear what a; coil we have been raising in England about the recent great heat. But our good cousins are more accustomed to it than we are, and London is not at all a city of the sun. What people suffered during those tropical days might be gathered from the desperate efforts they made to keep cool. There was a rage for big Japanese paper umbrellas, which were carried by all classes. Navvies and working men turned out in enormous straw hats ; the omnibus drivers and omnibus cads, condemned to long hours in the blazing sun, wore large which many added also a cool summer cabbage leaf under their hats. Members of Parliament were to be seen going down to the House in a full suit of white drill; the Prime Minister carried a white umbrella, and the great chambers of Parliament were artificially cooled by currents of iced air. a few wise people tried to eiclude the heat by closing all appertures and keeping rooms dark, but the largest number threw open every window to the torrid external atmosphere, and vainly pined , for a cooling breeze. Of course the demand for iced drinks was everywhere inappeasable ■ cold meat mayonnaises, chaudfoids, aspics of all sorts, appeared on every table ; if the heat had continued we should have had punkah and tatties, and iced bath A But nothing lasts long in England, and within 24 hours of the greatest heat people were shivering in the cold blast and wishing for their greatcoats. — Home News.