Page:Three Years in Europe.djvu/50

26 Near the Temple Bar in London is a place for hair-cutting and shampooing, which was at one time the palace of Henry VIII. and Wolsey. Near that place, too, is a dining place where Dr. Johnson and his companions,—illustrious persons all,—used to assemble.

For the last five or six days (January 1870) it has been intensely cold here. We had snowfall almost every day, and streets, squares, trees and tops of houses have all been covered with snow. The ornamental waters in the parks have been frozen over and there has been plenty of skating on them. Imagine to yourself a vast sheet of ice with hundreds of men, boys and girls over it, all going in different directions,—in straight lines, circles and curves, with a rapidity and dexterity that is remarkable. We are told that some winters back the ice broke in the Regent's Park and about 300 people fell in and perished. And yet such is the rage for skating that we are assured by one who narrowly escaped being drowned that day that, if the water had been frozen over the next day, he would have gone in for skating the next day.

Snowfall is a beautiful thing to see,—the whole firmament is filled with silver flakes floating on the air and gently descending on the ground.

The problem of the condition of the poor engages the attention of Englishmen, and is, in the present cold season, exciting deep interest. Notwithstanding many noble qualities, the lower classes of England are in many