Day-time readings of these human thermometers are very significant but at night the effect is even more striking. The families overflow the foot-path out into the street. The safety zones up the centre of the highway are all taken by the early birds who bring out their chairs or stools and prepare to spend a cool evening watching the gay world go by or sleeping later on, when most of the night's excitement is over. Naked and all-but naked babies roll about on strips of matting, often fanned by languid mothers or fathers.
Late in the evening the women and children disappear inside the house. Apparently it is not seemly for mothers and daughters to camp out on the sidewalk for the night with the rest of the family and one sighs to think of the victims of convention sweltering in their stifling quarters. At all events it is a comfort to know that some of the family are getting what fresh air there is. Yes, whenever anyone asks how hot it was last night as compared with night before last one is impelled to say: "About 3,378 last night as against 2,137 the night before," meaning a wild estimate of the people seen stretched out on the sidewalks of that section on each evening.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.