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

2/2 A Plea for Gas Lamps
height. Many holes, drilled in the conical
turret-roof of this vagabond Pharos, let up
spouts of dazzlement into the bearer's eyes ;
and as he paced forth in the ghostly dark-
ness, carrying his own sun by a ring about
his finger, day and night swung to and fro
and up and down about his footsteps.
Blackness haunted his path ; he was be-
leaguered by goblins as he went ; and, curfew
being struck, he found no light but that he
travelled in throughout the township.
Closely following on this epoch of migra-
tory lanthorns in a world of extinction, came
the era of oil-lights, hard to kindle, easy to
extinguish, pale and wavering in the hour of
their endurance. Rudely puffed the winds
of heaven ; roguishly clomb up the all-de-
structive urchin ; and, lo ! in a moment night
re-established her void empire, and the cit
groped along the wall, suppered but bedless,
occult from guidance, and sorrily wading in
the kennels. As if gamesome winds and
gamesome youths were not sufficient, it was
the habit to sling these feeble luminaries