154 WINTER SKETCHES. 



doors, huge snowdrifts piled upon the piazzas, 

 the abandoned photograph shanties, and the 

 boat-houses with their signs still displayed, 

 ** Boats to let " — boats to let, with ice eighteen 

 inches thick, and a thickness of eighteen inches 

 of snow over the ice. 



But there was no lack of activity on the lake. 

 Gangs of men were busily employed in filling 

 the two great ice-houses, which hold 60,000 

 tons. Canals, nearly a quarter of a mile long, 

 had been cut out into deep water so that the 

 purest ice might be obtained. The great cakes 

 were pushed along by men until they reached 

 the shore, when a sort of steam tread-mill ap- 

 paratus seized them and jerked them up to a 

 high platform, from whence they slid down to 

 lie side by side or one above the other in a 

 compact mass until they were wanted for re- 

 frigerators, fever hospitals, ice-creams, mint 

 juleps, and the thousand uses to which ice is 

 put in summer, the most common and the 

 worst of which is that of ruining the digestion 

 of persons who drink ice-water with their meals. 



There was not always such a craze for ice- 

 water in this country. It has not yet invaded 

 Europe. Doubtless it was to Mr. Breslin one 

 of the most objectionable practices of the 



