THE WEATHER IN EUROPE.

Colonist, Volume III, Issue 288, 24 July 1860, Page 3

THE WEATHER IN EUROPE.

For the last.eight months the weather has. been very untoward in the British Isles. When it has not rained, it has snowed— when it has neither rained nor snowed, the wind as blown in perfect hurricanes.; No-' matter to what point the Weit^er-cock has j flpwn round, we have beeft living \n a gale of wind. Is there s,uch a tpag at'clear sky? Does the sunrever ify'ine? Sorely those primroses and violet* which we see in Co vent-garden are oHl|sJr y fear's produce, potjied and preserved in spine, peculiar mapner? Oh!, ior the good old days when even French revolutionists of gloomy imaginations could invent such blessed, wqrcfs as Germinal, Flovea'l, PrairiaK Have such months has Thermidor, Fructidor, and Messidor ever had existence at all?. . The austerity of the weather has actually amounted to a national calamity in these islands. We are forewarned by agriculturists soothsayers that, unless matters mend, and,that speedily, pastures and roots wiJl perish, that"the harvest will not have,time, to ripen unless the warm showers and icorching suns appear before the present mdnth has'blown itself tmt. We'have uot a word to Bay nor a plea to urge in defence. oTUieUleikoflhe Weather as iar v tiw

British Islands 1 are concerned. That functionary has conducted himseli as though we were at the head of a department of Administration. It is not only we Londoners who have reason to complain. Canny Yorkshire but the other day was in mid-winter, and the plains were covered with snow. In Ireland, in Scotland, it has been the same thing. Our shores have been strewn with wrecks, our edges give no sign. There is no hawthorn, no gaiety, no spring—nothing in fact, but the east wind and the influenza. The only consolation we can enjoy under our, calamity—if, indeed it is a consolation —ig that our case is not an exceptional one. The detestible weather under which we are suffering has been the lot of Continental Europe as well as our own. Indeed, if we carry our speculations further South, we are informed by bur advices from Egypt'that within the memory of man no such inclement weather has been known at Cairo as, during the present season. Sometimes when it has snowed in France' it has rained with*. us, and when it has rained wjutl|;us it has, snowed in Germany. The Polel have probably suffered; more from east wind, and we from south-west gales. jThere is however one corner of Europe about which poets and romance-writers have ever raved, but which this year has been treated meteorologically speaking just like other countries. Let no man speak henceforth of the azure skies of | Italy. The sky over the Po, the Arno, the |: Tiber has of late been even' as the sky ■over the River Thames at Blackfriarsj bridge—even such, and no other. Even at Naples, where the, police are so busily engaged in locking up the beloved subjects of their august Monarch, great sufferingshave been endured by the poorer classesin, consequence of the inclemency of the weather.Such a misfortune falls upon them with greater, severity even than upon our own people, for Naples is a summer habitation. We, to a certain extent, and almost to the extent of our capacity, make annual provision for the bitterness of winter. We pile up coal, we make our rooms air-tight; we are accustomed to these inflictions to a cer*tain. extent, and brace our energies up to meet them. Not so with the poorer Neapolitans. They are like butterflies, so far that they cannot live out of the sun. Further North in this Italian Peninsula it is a popular error to suppose that the inhabitants of Bologna, of Florence,: of Turin, of Venice, of Milan, do not suffer every year from cold and frost, though not in the same degree as during the last six months. It never was a very warm proceeding at Florence, in the month of January, to turn sharply off the Lurigo TAmo at midday, and to walk doWii in the direction of the Cathedral. The wind cuts into you, sharp and clear as a surgeon's knife, and you were made, very practically to understand the value of those heavy cloaks in which the Italians envelope themselves, and hide their faces up to their very eyes in the thick folds. ' Venice in winter is. one. of the very coldest and most disagreeable places of residence in Europe. This yeaiy however, matters seem to have been as bad—under the head of weather—in sunny Italy as in foggy England; we do not speak of-Eng-land under its more familiar aspects during winter and early spring, but of England as it has been during the last six months. ; What a pitiable story we published yesterday of the state of, things at Bologna when Victor .Emmanuel entered that capital of! his. iEmilian •dominions, saturated with glory and rain! Theclouds are described as dark and dense, and looking as throughout eternity they could still hold out the supplies of water, which yet they continued to pour on the devoted city in the most uninterrupted and pitiless manner. It rained; there all throughout April, and now May has come things are' worse, not better. Firewprks, illumihatidus, , and triumphal arches were out of the question.' The fireworks refused to go off, the lamps could not be lighted, and the arches were washed down as quickly as they could be put up. What a description of Bologna on the 2d of May ! " Bologna was all up and , astir at a very early hour in the morning, crowding its narrow thoroughfares, creeping under the shelter of its low dank porticoes, pad- ! dling in the mire of its deluged squares. The feathers of the Bersaglieri were draggled, and dripping with water. The pennons of the lances clung to the staves. The infantry paddlfed through six inches of mud. All the flags were stained with mud; not even jhe deluge of rain could keep them clean. Sometimes it drizzled; and sometimes it poured; but whether it drizzled or \yh[ether it .poured the crowds of expectant Bkn lognese were steadily drenched. Their porticoes, afld archways could not save them, and this in the story of a city which was built up against the sun, as its only clanger or discomfort. The King was compelled to abandon the open state carriage, in which, as it had been planned, he wag, to exhibit himself to his new subjects, for a covered vehicle. Royalty looked out of the window, and Loyalty, wet to the skin and bespatted with mud, cheered in the streets. The Priest party have very naturally taken advantage of this eligible opening to talk of the finger of Providence, and the manifest indignation of Heaven at the blasphemous usurpation of the Sardinian. Something we remember to have read about rain which is caused to fall upon the just and the unjust^ but we,do not suppose that the Bologne'se priests are very ardent students of the text of Scripture. Might it not just be possihle to put another interpretation upon this, deluge of rain, even regarding it as a special interposition ? There was a good old story about the Augean stables, and how, after a long period of years, they had been fouled and dirted by the presence of endless cattle of an ignoble description; One Dr. Hercules, who was « great wyiitary lefonnej in those days,

was called in, and his prescription was : /,hat a stream of water shouid.be diverted from its natural channel and turned through the filthy stable. So great apurifier, so valuable a sanitary agent, was water in those days, as in our own.' Now is it not just possible—of course, we are adopting for the moment the priestly theory of special interposition—that just at the time the ignavum pecus of monks and other adherents of Rome has been turned out of these, Bolognese stables merciful showers have been sent from above r to wash away ,the last traces of their uncomfortable presence? How bright the arcades of the old town will look when it leaves off raining, and the Roman people are all goneiback to Rome! We may beperrnitted to mention that1 the weather at Rome has been exceedingly'j^ad as well as that at Bologna. aY Upon the theory of thespeclal interpositionists how.is this fact to be vinterpreted as far as the Pope himself is concerned? If the King of Sardinia is to be washed out of Bologna by this cloudy demonstration,, how about Pio Nono and the Vatican.? We must not weigh ;with two weights, nor use two measures, or hydrp.me'ters either. If the rain,be all right at Rome, it cannot be so very wrong at Bologna. • This point, ; however, although ;it might perhaps be worked with some ad van tag 3 by a crafty Italian monk in discourse with an ignorant, peasant of the iEmilia, will scarcely bear discussion in our columns. - . . If the titles of all the Royal.personages in Europe were to be brought to the test of the weather, being such as it has been for the last eight months,, we have no option but to declare all the thrones vacant, and see how we can get on as a confederation of republics. , As: to England,: an. English summer is like the county of Cromarty on a map of Scotland. A little bit is;dovetailed in here and there, but there is no continuity about it. Sometimes we get a bit of June in January, and sometimes a bit of January in June. Our only comfort must be that, between the Baltic and the Mediterranean, go where we would, we could not much mend our case. ; The weather of Europe, not of England alone," as gone awry, and the Continentalriations must cease to crack jokes at our expense. We are all involved in the meshes of the drag-net which has been cast over the dwellers. in Europe. One thing only is certain—here we are, and we must do our best to make.up for the gloom without by brightness within. Paper Duty.—The debate on the 9th instant, on the position of the Press in relation to Parliament, was remarkable for the effort made by Mr. Walter, the chief proprietor of the Times, as he is considered, to exalt his senatorial character at the expense of journalism. His admission, too, that his proprietary interest in the Tmesis of a very limited description," but that he "has large property connected with it wholly independent of a limited proprietary interest," tends very much to perplex the public, whilst it stimulates their curiosity. Mr. Walter and Mr. Lowe, of the Times* with Mr. Caird, its late Agricultural Commissioner, supported the third reading of the Paper Duty Repeal Bill—carried by 'a majority of 10 only. It is understood that the Times people have bitten their fingers in this matter. They thought to get paper very cheap, and to reduce their price a penny, repaying themselves by an increased charge for advertisments, and an increased sale. One of the managers is a paper maker, and of course there would have been a good deal of grist to that mill. When it was ascertained that^the scarcity of rags would make paper deafer under an increased demand for it, the Times began to listen to Mr. Wrigley, arid to manefest symptons of uneasiness, but its representatives in Parliament had gone too far to publicly retract, and they voted for the third reading of the j Paper Duty Repeal. Bill. A more formidable opposition never jjmenaced a bill transmitted from the Lower to t^e Upper House. Lord Monteagle will move an amendment with the design of defeating it altogether, and Lord Derby has annouced that he will give this amendment the utmost weight of his support. Lord Monteagle is a Whig, and an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Government will have to meet in him, not only one of their own party, , but an authority on financial matters. Ministers talk of resignation in the event of defeat.