THE SNOW IS COMING. It is a long while since anything happened in this world for the first time. The first time the sun shone—the first time the snos fell—these things are not matter of record. By good luck, the firs time is always recurring—especially in London. What Londoner does not remember the first time the sun shone again after a fog that lasted a week? And when the first snow falls the cockners do not take it as if they were country folk. Strange excitement comes over them at the mere thought of sooty London dressed in white. A few go about quoting Mr. Robert Bridges, who alone of poets has understood them on this point; and the rest quote him without knowing. I had not accounted to myself for it; but an unusual stir in ; my blood moved me to run, to shout, or sing, or behave in a manner that might have caused the police to interfere, as I went along the streets one evening in early winter. The gas-lamp is in itself a signal for the enjoyment of Londoners. They may be half asleep all day, but with the yellow dawning of those myriads of stars a glow of warmth quickens them. So much the better, if there should be a moon to make faces among the chimney-tops! (There was a moon that night.) If the snow be on the way, and the air tense with the expectation of it, the nerves awake and sting the languid soul into pleasure. I turned down a poor alley to visit an acquaintance there—an Essex woman who talks about 'threadling' her needle, and supposes the plural of 'house' to be housen. She is married to a sailor who sails the seas no more. He sometimes tries to explain to me the geography-or seaography—of a ship. I never understand it, but I have learned to talk about the ryals' and the main-topgallon,' whatever that may be. The snow is coming!'I said to his wife, with as much exultation as if I had said " The Queen is coming!' *Yes, miss,' she said, ' and coals is one-and-threepence a hundred, and they'll go up. She glanced at the sky. What a pity it is to have a financial interest in the weather! I felt ashamed because I had none. I remembered Mrs. Ewing's heroine, who poked the fire expensively,' and sighed a little THE SNOW IS COMING. 809 a and smiled also—to think that I could poke mine as often as I liked. Then I went into the South Kensington Museum, to look for a spinning-wheel. The policeman and the man at the entrance were divided in their minds as to whether a spinning-wheel is a piece of furniture or a machine. If it is a piece of furniture, yes, you will find it there! If it is a machine, no, you will never find it unless you go across the road. Not feeling inclined to go across the road, I chose to consider it furniture. Past one half and then the other of the column of Trajan, through the old tapestry room, down the narrow corridor of snowmen and snow-women bequeathed to us by Greeks and Romans, I went; and reached at last the place where chairs and tables, and beds and cabinets and mirrors, ranged with forlorn regularity, show what beautiful homes people had once. There was never a spinning-wheel among them. I listened for the ghostly hum of it in vain. Tired out after a long search, I sat down to rest on the pedestal of a cupboard. The gallery was quite deserted, except for a woman of middle age, who seemed willing neither to go nor to stay. Something fidgety and wistful about her compelled one to notice her movements. She went to and fro with rapid, uncertain steps, making indefinite pauses before the object of her consideration—trying to leave it, as it were—always returning. The magnetic force that attracted her seemed to reside in a wooden cradle. There was nothing particular about it; it was not like the cradle of the Earl of Derwentwater, which stood near by-three black feathers that had once been golden still waved stiffly over the head. It was just a wooden cradle—nothing more, nothing less. Yet she came back again and again, as if she could not tear herself from the spot. She was a well-favoured person, fresh and weather-beaten, as though she had lived much in the open air. Her dress was so neat that the shabby material of it did not at first strike the eye; would not perhaps have struck me at all but for the fact that she wore woollen gloves. She was clearly a single woman; I could have told that by the vague suddenness of motion which is common to those who are much by themselves and have not to think of disturbing other women in the room. You, here!' she said, addressing a policeman as he went by. Mine is much better than that,' and she pointed to the I'm sick to cradle. Her accent was good, but she spoke rather too loud for a lady. 'Indeed, Miss ?' said the guardian of law and order, with great politeness. He knew as well as I did that she was Ver and not Mrs. • Mine is old ; it's been in our family from father to son, ani all that kind of thing,' she went on. • The Museum's giren & for that. Do you think, now, they would give me 61. for mine The carving on mine's much better. I know, because I'm 2 a artist. That's not good art at all. Now mine's Elizabethean. Maybe, Miss. Couldn't say. Couldn't say. We ain't got but one or to specimens. 'I've half a mind to do it,' she said, in quick, excited totes 'It's awfully cold. I believe the snow's coming. death of London lodgings; there isn't room to swing a cat in ther. I'd better by half have a fire to sit by. And I could always corze and see the cradle here, couldn't I ? They wouldn't take it away? I could always come and see it? I could come and see it every day if I liked.' The policeman reassured her as to this, and moved on. Now I thought, she would surely go. But she did not. She waited until the policeman was out of sight, when she took a biscuit from her pocket and began to eat carefully and furtively, making as few crumbs as possible. It was her afternoon tea, I supposed, and she was taking it here for the sake of the warmth. 'I beg your pardon,' I began. 'I heard you say just you had a beautiful old cradle. I happen to know a lady who is fond of such things. I feel sure that she would give you 10). if you would be so kind as to dispose of it to her.' No,' she said, without a moment's hesitation. I wouldn't part with it, not to any private individual. It was my mother's, and mother's mother's before her. I wouldn't let it go except to here. And I wouldn't do that, only the snow's coming. But I can come and see it here every day-every day—just as if it 1789 in my own room.' There was a refreshing absence of gratitude about her; did not even say "Thank you. I turned away. The streets were brighter, the air tingled more fiercely than ever as I went home; but I felt glad no longer because the snow was coming. M. E. COLERIDGE. a now that a my she SIGNIFICANT ACTS OF PARLIAMENT. The course of a nation's career is fixed largely by the policy The significant is often the curious, and to speak of the curious In a rapid glance at the Statute Book, the writer's aim has been to pick out those laws whose dissimilarity from the present bent of legislation gives a particular significance, and throws a special light on the varying conditions of the life of the country. The first Act to arrest attention, concerned with the internal or family history of Parliament itself, shows that the idea of payment of members, which is a present-day subject of debate, is, like other things under the sun, no new one. The Act in question, of the seventh year of Henry VIII.'s reign, enacted that members absenting themselves from Parliament should lose their wages. Two Acts that are still in force, concerned with the purity of the House of Commons, were passed during the long reign of George III. : that of 1782 prevented any person concerned in contracts for the public service being elected or sitting in the House, and the other, enacted in 1812, aimed at suspending and finally vacating the seats of members who become bankrupt and do not liquidate their obligations within a limited time. The franchise was not tampered with in the centuries preceding the present, but a residential qualification was required by the law of 1786, which prevented occasional inhabitants from voting at elections of members for cities and boroughs in England. The Sumptuary Laws that were passed in the Middle Ages are quite foreign to the spirit and temper of the nineteenth century. They aimed at keeping each within his proper sphere by fixing limits to the expenditure of citizens upon apparel and othe: personal concerns. A complete schedule of the clothing that should be worn in every class of society was prescribed in the Act of the third year of Edward IV. (1464). Apparently ar excess in attire sprang up that had not been provided for in this Act, for another one followed in the ensuing year, prohibiting the wearing of shoes with long peaked toes. The pictures of the people of the Elizabethan age depict what many would consider an artistic taste in apparel, but which was looked upon at the time as an excess, and called for a proclamation (1580) against broad ruffs, long cloaks and swords, and long spikes on the bosses of shields. Connected with the indignities and outrages committed upon the Jews in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is the Act of 1275, compelling all the children of Israel to wear a badge. There are many instances of curious Acts passed in connection with restrictions on trades and professions, and in some cases an element of humour enters into them when judged by the standaris of to-day. The want of confidence in lawyers, which rightly or wrongly is somewhat commonly entertained, is at least as old as the times of Henry VI., for an Act was passed in 1461 to reduce the number of attorneys in the Eastern Counties. The Act shows that there were upwards of eighty such in Norfolk and Suffolk, and their numbers were mercilessly reduced to six in Norfolk, sis in Suffolk, and two in Norwich. A statute of Henry VII. (1489) enacted that no butcher should slaughter cattle in any walled town, a restriction likewise extended to Cambridge. As though the gambling of the South Sea Bubble period had cast its shadow before, an Act of 1697 strove to limit the number and restrain the ill-practices of brokers and stock-jobbers, and after the disasters of that time another Act in 1734 aimed at preventing certain infamous' practices of stock-jobbing. A law not of restriction but of relief was that of 1712 exempting apothecaries from serving the offices of constable, scavenger, and other parish duties, |
