The British Horror Of A Draught

Ponn Piatt saya in a letter to the Washington Capital: "If tliere is anything John Buil dreads with a terror that cannot be expressed in words it is a draught. He may have his umbrella stolen, sit on his hat, be cheated by a oabby, and yet retain that high courage and calm, phlegmatic philosophy which for centurias has preserved the noble Briton from a state of servitude. But let a draught strike any part of his sensitive person and he immediately Buccumba in an abject state of fear really pitiable. He cries out, "God bless me !" atid one knows from the tone that a draught has struok him. We were conversiug with an officer of the army one day at dinner. This venerable military rooster had made his spurs respeotable by gallant services in the Orimean war. We spoke of the horrible exposure and hardships of that campaign, and he gave us details of life, or rather death in the ditches that made us regard him one of the immortal six hundred who had suoh a qnantity of artillery on the right and left of 'em. "It was uncommon uawsty," he Raid with emphasis, his military memory reverting to those memorable days, "bnt the worst of all in that business of the ditches were the dwarfs." We thought he referred to the nn-w levies of raw troop, and said as much. "Not that, bless my soul, not that," he responded. "I referred to the dwarfs in the ditches. Do what one could and it was impossible te escape a blarsted dwarf, you know." This is what chilled the noble Britair in his terrible war, and darkened its glory with "conghs, colds, cattarrhs and consumption," to quote ourDr. Cook when discoursing on his Balm of Life. This dread of a national plague has affected English architecture and given a popularity to the public buildings found iu no other part of the iuhabited globe.