NEWS OF 150 YEARS AGO
January and February 1864
From The Missouri Democrat, Friday, January 1, 1864.
THE WIND AND THE SNOW. – All day yesterday the snow fell. All day the wind blew. Over the house-tops, under the eaves, through the window blinds, down cellar steps, and through crevices and crannies, the strong wind thrust the feathery flakes, whirling them against dead walls, and dashing them into the faces of the few pedestrians who ventured into the streets. The wind seemed to blow from all points of the compass at once. If you turned your face to the south, it dashed a handful of snow into your face; if you looked northward, it took your breath away, and pelted your cheeks with fine particles of snow; if you wheeled to the east, the blast met you on the turn, and filled your nostrils with snow; if you boxed around to the west, old Boreas whistled in your ears, and filled them full of snow.
In some places banks, eight or ten feet in height, showed where the wind had been at work throwing up breastworks in a style that would have done honor to General Pillow. But few vehicles were to be seen, and the street cars came along at remote intervals on Fourth street and Broadway, but the Wells road was buried fathoms deep, and after eight o’clock his anatomical steeds were not exposed to the severity of the storm. Toward evening a few sleighs ventured out with their jingling bells and smoking horses, but sleighing was “cold comfort” at best.
It was the heaviest fall of snow that has visited this locality for over twenty years. The old year died hard, groaning and writhing in extreme agony, and his death-rattle was terrible. His winding sheet was several feet thick, and his pall-bearers were the four winds, who fought, and wrestled, and screamed, and struggled over his bier in a very rude and barbarian manner.
Such a snow-storm as that of yesterday, is a fearful visitation to a great city. The rich who have comfortable houses, with warm clothing and plenty of fuel and provisions, are not much affected by it; but the poor and improvident – the tenants of bleak houses – the children of misfortune whose means are scanty – they feel the full weight of the storm, and huddle together around their meagre fires and implore the Good Being to turn back the rude north wind and dissolve the unwelcome snow in the warm beams of the sun. Now is the time for the tender hand of charity to be stretched forth; and while the festive rejoicings over the birth of the new year are in progress, let not the poor and needy be forgotten.
