Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1887 - Virginibus Puerisque, and other papers

A PLEA FOR GAS LAMPS
/^^ITIES given, the problem was to light
them. How to conduct individual
citizens about the burgess-warren, when once
heaven had withdrawn its leading luminary ?
or — since we live in a scientific age — when
once our spinning planet has turned its back
upon the sun ? The moon, from time to
time, was doubtless very helpful ; the stars
had a cheery look among the chimney-pots ;
and a cresset here and there, on church or
citadel, produced a fine pictorial effect, and,
in places where the ground lay unevenly, held
out the right hand of conduct to the benighted.
But sun, moon, and stars abstracted or con-
cealed, the night -faring inhabitant had to
fall back — we speak on the authority of old
prints — upon stable lanthorns, two stories in