The wintry weather which began on Tuesday shows no signs of breaking and the cold is expected to last over the week-end.
At last the long-deferred seasonable weather has come. On Tuesday morning the first snow of the winter fell with a suddenness that caught everyone unprepared. Fur coats had been left at home, but on the next and following days they were very much in evidence, especially among men.
Overnight minimum temperature was as low as 28.2 degree Fah. and at the hour when the usual business crowd were wending their way wards the palaces on The Bund the thermometer still registered two degrees below freezing point. The mud and slush of the previous day presaged further discomforts, but the perennial features of a first snowfall were luckily absent, although there was a biting north "Frost's Descent" took place late this year, but not so late as those "unacquainted with meteorological lore might believe. It was on December 23 of the old year that the mercury first fell below freeze ing point. Subsequently the thermometer read 23.9 degree, 28.4 degree and 27.1 degree on the night of January 10, December 26 and on the last day of 1921. It will thus be seen that the coldest night was last Tuesday. On these dates the maximum temperature showed no great improvement over these figures, but the icy blast from Siberia did not accompany the coldness. Everyone could be excused for thinking that winter, save perhaps for a short spel] over China New Year and in early February, might not trouble them greatly, and the illusion was helped by the fact that in gardens many of the later autumn flowers were threatening to bloom again.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.