THE BLIZZARD AS A DESTROYER. 135 



from warmth and comfort, pedestrians were overwhelmed by 

 the blinding storm, and their frozen bodies, still in a stand- 

 ing position, have hardly yet ceased to be dug out from the 

 closely packed snowdrifts." "The great blizzard has had 

 its lessons. If we regard man as claiming supremacy over 

 the forces of Nature, such a storm teaches us how far man 

 is from subjecting the tempest, or even predicting its onset; 

 and how the mighty organism which he has pieced together, 

 can be paralyzed in a few hours, and left dependent for life 

 upon the forbearance of the conqueror. The storm that has 

 visited New York is the worst which has visited it within 

 human memory ; yet in a fortnight the great blizzard will be 

 forgotten, and man will be absorbed, as blindly as ever, in 

 the struggle for riches or subsistence." * 



Yes! in the fierce race for wealth, and amid the 

 continual whirl and turmoil of life in a great city, 

 these things are soon suffered to pass out of mind. 

 The dead, are buried, and their memory perishes; the 

 lesson which the great event has taught is as completely 

 forgotten as were the plagues of Egypt in days of 

 old the moment they ceased to trouble and yet had 

 the icy gale continued but a little longer, it is not 

 too much to say that none of the plagues of Egypt 

 could have borne comparison with the blizzard in its 

 disastrous consequences. For as the same article which 

 we have quoted from above, points out: 



" Stop the circulation in a human body, and life is snuffed 

 out at once; but the circulatory system of a city admits of 

 a longer pause; but it is only a question of days; and if a 

 second storm had supervened upon the first, the pulse of 

 some huge community might have ceased to beat for ever." f 



* Extracts Times, Leading Article, in paper of March 19, 1888. 

 f Ibid. 



