On noxious vapours and town smoke, with suggestions on house warming / by Alfred E. Fletcher ; read before the Society, 25th January, 1888.

  • Fletcher, Alfred E.
Date:
22 cm
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On noxious vapours and town smoke, with suggestions on house warming / by Alfred E. Fletcher ; read before the Society, 25th January, 1888. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    reference to noxious gases, we must go back to very distant times. Five centuries and a-hal£ ago, in the reign of King Edward II., it seems tbat coal ( sea-coal, as it was called, since it was brought from Newcastle by sea) was already largely employed in or about London, principally, I suppose, in smithies, breweries, and other factories where large fires were needed, not yet in houses, perhaps. It was used in sufficient quantities to cause great offence by the black smoke emitted. So great were the complaints that in the year 1813 the Parliament petitioned the King to forbid the use of sea-coal altogether; and this was done. It was a trenchant measure, and did not recognise the principle I have tried to estab- lish, and, in consequence, it was unsuccessful. How far the edict was obeyed at the time I cannot learn, but certainly the abstinence enjoined was not practised long. Wood, the ordinary fuel of the country, became scarcer as the forests vanished before the in- creasing population, and coal had to take its place. Ever since these early days, smoke has held its own against all attempts at suppression. To come down to more recent times, we find that in 1829 a Select Committee of the House of Commons inquired into the effect of the smoke of factory chimneys on the public health ; and, in 1843, another Committee considered the means and expediency of preventing the nuisance of smoke. Since that time three Imperial Acts have been passed—namely, those of 1857, 1861, and 1865—in which black coal-smoke is declared to be a nuisance, and its emission prohibited under penalties. In the Public Health Act for Scotland, 1867, black smoke is condemned as a nuisance, and in the Scotch Smoke Abatement Act, 1857, it is enacted that—Every furnace be constructed or altered so as to consume or burn the smoke arising from such furnace. The penalties attached are from forty shillings to £5 for the first offence; £10 for the second offence; and for every subsequent offence, the penalty is to be double that of the last, with all costs in addition. Tliis seems severe enough; surely there are no people daring enough to emit black smoke after this. Wait! there is one more line to be quoted :— This Act is to be enforced by the Local Authority. And do not the Local Authorities throughout the kingdom enforce it 1 Yes, certainly; at least, they do in Glasgow. Tliey punish every one who emits black smoke, but they put their own interpretation on the word emit. Emit is held to mean discharge during three consecutive minutes, but tliis must not