streets; there were no trains run, and consequently no mails received or dispatched; there was no business done in shops or stores, for few ventured abroad, and they only persons who had

work to do.

Those who had come to their daily tasks in the morning could not get home at night, and the hotels were crowded with men and women whose employers had to house them there; while business men who could not join their families were added to the homeless throngs. There were many rumours of missing children who had not reported since their schools were let out, even into the evening. There was much reason to fear that some of the rumours might be true in a tempest so fierce and unceasing, where beside the fine, light snow that the wind bore in its fury, a keen sleet that cut the face was driven sharply; the eyes filled with it, and when one turned to catch breath, every other minute, he wiped the icicles from his eye-lashes. The wind was of such fury that every breath seemed to tear the lungs, and this trebled the labour of the walker, contending against snow mid-thigh or waist deep, so that an ordinary three-minute walk in a side-street would consume a quarter of an hour. This was in the middle of the afternoon; by

night the side

streets were given up as impassable by any one, the

sidewalk drifts covering the fences from sight except for an occasional gulch scooped by the antic winds.

There was no such thing as getting a view of the storm during the day; the vision could reach but a few rods, the clouds could not be seen, all the air was a mad whirl of flakes, and to look up Main street was to see an ominous moving wall, frayed and tossed at the edges, of a sort of dull brown colour in the height of day, deepening as the unseen sun dropped below the blocks.

It was a wicked day among the elements, one of those days that impress on the mind the fact that there is no sort of sympathy for man in that mystery called Nature, and that beside her power man's wonderful ingenious triumphs are mere toys. What were his boasts, the locomotive engine and the telegraph, yesterday, when the north wind and the snow came down upon earth and raged over it? It was like the caprice of some gigantic spirit, sending his servants not to destroy, but to obstruct and vex. "See!" thus they cried,-" It is well for you to stay where you are to-day; you, clerk at your desk,-you, sales-woman at your counter—you, merchant, and your children will not see each other to-night,-sleep where you can, all of you, this is my pleasure. Let the world go on as it will, you people will be none the worse

off if you do not see a newspaper, or get a letter, or send a dispatch. And I will leave you some work to do or have done in the morning. Prisoners are always digging out of prisons-you may dig out. Fun for all of you-great fun!"

How far the storm reaches no one knows at this writing. It took from between 9 o'clock and 10 Sunday night until 8 o'clock yesterday morning for it to reach Lowell, which is not very rapid traveling for such a coast gale as this. In the evening, about 24 hours after it began, the snow had apparently almost ceased falling here, and the temperature was less exasperating, though the winds still blew swiftly, heaping up the snow, whistling and wailing around the eaves and down the chimneys, and making life out of doors about as undesirable as it ever is. On the hills this must be a tremendous storm, like those the elders tell of 50 and 60 years ago; highways and byways alike will be obliterated, and the cattle in some barns have to go without fodder; late in March though it is, there will be neighbourhood breakingouts. Any one starting on a walk in a sparsely settled mountain district yesterday would have stood a right smart chance of never getting there -wherever he wanted to get.

There were a good many March meetings to be held yesterday, but the corners and borders of

the towns were scarcely likely to turn out in great numbers, even if there were important legislation to accomplish, and matters were doubtless hurried by those who did come. A Yankee will brave as

much as any man for business, but going out yesterday on the hills was little short of foolishness. We suppose this storm this storm was as good a specimen of the blizzard as the East needs to see; men who had wintered in Dakota said yesterday that except for the intense cold of the real Dakota article, we had the same thing,-every other feature of the storm was perfectly reproduced.

The Picture After the Storm

T

HE great storm had not discharged its burden and taken wings and fled away yesterday morning, nor did the clouds disperse in the course of the day, but overhung gloomily, as if they were waiting to produce some new mischief. Occasionally a flurry of snow filled the air, and the wind, still in the northeast, was rough and raw. The indecision of the weather was the opportunity of the citizen, but he was sluggish about improving it, and the magnitude of the job frightened him, and neither the city nor the street railroad company displayed. that energy which would have encouraged private enterprise. In fact, slow though they were, the citizens came off at the end of daylight ahead of the municipality and the tenants of the highway.

The appearance of the city was unprecedented. In the unbroken quiet of the morning hours it lay, except for Main street, as trackless as the forest. Like the forest, there was the exception of its lesser animal life, for as the rabbits and

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