opposition such as would retard rather than advance the progress of legislation.

Mr. Alderman BENNETT (Liverpool) insisted on the importance of keeping cottages in courts (in which he said about one third of the inhabitants of Liverpool dwell) free from all nuisances, and particularly from water-closets connected with drains and sewers. He exhibited receptacles large enough to hold one day's refuse of every kind, which he would have emptied daily by public servants, and washed at standpipes, of which he would have one in each court.

Mr. BALDWIN LATHAM, C.E. (London), said that, with reference to infectious fevers, it appeared to him that medical men, in proposing legislation in these cases, always left themselves out of the question. If a milkman or a baker had fever in his house, it was proposed to brand that house as dangerous, and thus possibly destroy all chances of that man gaining an honest livelihood, yet, on the other hand, no legislation was proposed to prevent a medical man going from one infectious patient to another, or visiting anybody not suffering from an infectious disease. It had been clearly shown, in a paper read at the last meeting of the Association at Brighton, that medical men could and did carry the seeds of contagion about with them, and might be the means of greatly spreading infectious fevers. The proposed compulsory powers to provide hospitals for such cases would meet the difficulty, assuming that every person, whether rich or poor, suffering from infectious disease, were conveyed to the hospital, and that the hospital had its own staff of medical men, who should not be allowed to carry on private practice, nor even leave the precincts of the hospital without undergoing quarantine. It did not appear fair to make one law for the rich and another for the poor. The wealthy man, under the system now proposed, could remain at home and have his own medical attendant to visit him, and thus medical men could very easily and effectually carry the seeds of infection about with them, but the poor man was to be sent off to the hospital, and excluded from the affectionate care of his relatives. With regard to the compensation proposed to be given to those who suffered loss by reason of an outbreak of infectious fever, it would have one good effect if the penalties fell upon sanitary authorities, as, probably, it would be an inducement to such authorities to undertake sanitary works, so as to prevent, as far as possible, the outbreak of such diseases.

Dr. BOND (Gloucester), in reply, deprecated the difficulties which had been suggested by one or two speakers as likely to render nugatory any attempts at legislation in the direction he had suggested. His experience of the ordinary British ratepayer was, that he was a longsuffering individual, and very amenable to legislative burdens. If he were only satisfied that they were for the general good of the community, and equally distributed, he might grumble somewhat at first, but he eventually submitted to them. There would, of course, be some friction in first setting in motion this department of sanitary machinery, as there had been in others, and as there was in all cases of new legislation; but if the powers which would be entrusted to sanitary authorities and their officers, by the proposals he had made, were exercised with dis

cretion, as those had been which had been already entrusted to them, he felt assured that any friction which might arise would be of a very temporary character. As to the objections which had been raised by some medical speakers against compelling medical men to notify to occupiers of houses the existence of infectious disease when it occcurred, on the ground that it would be interfering with the private relations between doctor and patient, he would not admit the force of such an objection. He had not suggested that the doctor should notify the disease to the sanitary authority; it should be the duty of the householder to do that. It was absurd to argue that it was any breach of confidence to compel a doctor to formally do what he ought to do as a matter of ordinary duty to those into whose houses he was called. It might be said that it was unnecessary to make this duty compulsory on medical men, as they would discharge it without compulsion. He replied that it was essential that it should be done in a formal way by a written notice, and under compulsion, in order that proof might be given that the householder was not ignorant of the existence of disease in his house.

NOXIOUS VAPOURS.1

What Amendments are required in the Legislation necessary to prevent the Evils arising from Noxious Vapours and Smoke? By R. ANGUS SMITH, PÅ.D., F.R.S.

As a Royal Commission is now examining this subject, I

shall of course reserve many opinions for them, and shall speak here only very generally.

The progress of manufactures is now becoming one of the greatest objects of a nation, and peoples who before struggled for land now struggle for markets. The new world vies with the old who shall make files, knives, and pottery, and Germany will feel as much humiliated if it sinks in its manufactures as it did when it fell politically for a while under French influence. We do not now admire highly a conquering nation, and the well-known sentence of Gibbon's great history teaches us that it was an old observation, that Rome itself was subdued by the arts of Greece, arts not confined to painting and sculpture, but diffused through all the works of the nation down to the simplest handicraft, refining the daily life.

It was a refinement of this kind when the Greek colony of Marseilles manufactured soap, but it was a refinement little advanced among the people; soda from Egypt must have come in small quantities when it is so little mentioned in history, and to have supplied the population on the shores of the Medi

1 See Transactions, 1866, p. 429; 1873, pp. 486, 499.

terranean with soap alone, would have required works such as we know did not then exist.

The small pieces of ancient glass found in Mediterranean countries (if this expression be allowed) are viewed by us as remarkable because it was once believed that there was none; the amount of soda required now to make glass alone demands of itself works of enormous magnitude.

But we may leave antiquity; fine linen, white and clean, is as much admired now as ever, and rapid methods of purifying and bleaching are adopted, whilst no one requires to inform the country of the importance of cotton, an import of the highest value to the community, and millions of bales of which require yearly to be whitened by chemical means.

It is not easy to tell how much of the refinement of life as well as actual health is due to this love of whiteness. I must leave you to imagine it, and to thank the chemical works of the country for producing the whiteness cheaply.

But I must add another example of chemical requirement, because it is probably of all others that which is most connected with civilisation and refinement, namely, paper.

It may be well to recall to your mind the enormous increase in late years of its manufacture, of the more than thousand millions of letters yearly written in our country only, and of newspapers abounding everywhere to such an extent as almost to become an inconvenience in every house. No substance or product of manufacture is such a mark of civilisation in this country as paper. I may even add that it is itself a symbol of freedom, of knowledge, of refinement, and general progress, and it is to a large extent to the increased use of paper that the increase of alkali works is owing.

I fear that it is needful to tell even to such an audience as this that the chemical works most complained of are demanded for soap, for glass, for fine linen, or white cotton, and for paper, and I must ask you to think how much is contained in these few words, but do not, even when you have thought that, suppose that the whole is said. Still, it is enough to imagine a world without soap. When you now cannot even take breakfast without washing, imagine your houses and your dinner-tables without glass, your social meetings without pure white linen, and, above all, England without paper, or that paper only brown.

It is quite necessary to lead you to form for yourselves this picture, because the case is not generally understood. There are men of the highest rank and with much influence in public questions who still require to learn of what use chemical

works are, and who reason in these words, almost exactly taken from the mouth of one deeply interested in the subject: These men, the manufacturers, make enormous sums; they work entirely for themselves and to the injury of their neighbour, for whom they care nothing. Why should this be allowed?'

These few remarks made will already show you that they do not work for themselves, that, in fact, they cannot work for themselves only; they work because the economy of the nation demands it; they are slaves in a certain sense to the demands of civilization, willing slaves so long as they are paid their wages; or servants, let us call them, but most laborious ones, because they know that if they refuse to work, others will instantly be put in their place by the very nation that complains of them.

EFFECT OF CHEMICAL WORKS GENERALLY.

It would scarcely surprise me to hear some persons laugh when the word refinement is even in a distant way made to appear connected with alkali works. Is it not true that those coming to Widnes, even from very dark and gloomy skies, enter that town with a certain awe and horror, at least on calm damp days, and wonder if life can be sustained there? It is quite true, and more than one of the senses is affected. We must wonder at the condition of things, and endeavour to weigh the evil, and the good also, if that is to be found. We must try

to look at the subject as a nation ought, and not as interested individuals only, at the same time not forgetting that it is the pride of a great nation to protect also every individual. We all seek protection, why should there be exceptions?

It is known that gases from some chemical works are extremely hurtful on certain days, and are not observed on others. If we examine the offending works on those first days, we may find the same operations going in the same way, however different the result may appear to those outside.

A little observation leads us to the knowledge that the difference is caused by the different conditions of the air, as to motion and moisture, and perhaps weight. The same amount of acid gases must do less harm in dry climates, where the whole year, or a large portion of it, is equal in dryness to our dry seasons. The same extent of observation is not allowed us on the Continent, since there is not there any concentration of works as with us; but I can easily judge from cases, especially in West Prussia, that the damage does not extend quite so far as it does here, although in the same cases I would judge from local circumstances that the escape of gas had been great.

When the air is moist, that is on those days when people

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remark that the air is heavy, it is wonderful to see the alkali cities-Widnes, for example-so densely covered with vapour that the horror alluded to is no exaggeration.

I cannot feel surprised at persons who told me that when they went to take up their residence in Newcastle, they looked from that great high level bridge on to the Tyne, and cried in a kind of despair at the banishment from the south-west, which, if not always sunny, is at least always supplied with clean air.

It is impossible not to sympathise with those who, having spent much time in ornamenting their residences, and making their gardens places of beauty and recreation, find that progress ceases, that gradually there is a decided deterioration. At last the truth flashes upon them that this backward movement is apparently inevitable; it comes like a cloud that cannot be averted, with a power almost as irresistible to an individual as a dispensation of Providence, or a law of the Creation. I have watched such cases carefully, and I see them going on even now, and the rose gardens are made bare like the desert, the reverse of the picture of progress, in which the desert blossoms like the rose.

Few people are not glad to run from the streets of a smoky city and live for a time on the barest hills, although there may be no chemical works properly so called in the town, the smoke of which they become tired of. When much coal is used we have the gloominess of the air, and a darkness both inside and outside the houses, and the very roads are black.

About forty years ago there was little more to complain of, with few exceptions, in connection with chemical manufactures than smoke, but about that time chemical works became more active, and so prominent, that plans for the condensation of gases were thought of, and Mr. William Gossage, now living amongst us, brought into use his condensing towers. Wisdom may be born full grown, but it takes a long time to teach others.

At that time the impurity also of the rivers began to excite more attention, and it seems surprising that so much work-and some people will say so much mischief-should be done in such a short time. The man is living, and well known in Europe, who, so far as he knows, first killed fish in Sankey Brook, near St. Helens, by sending muriatic acid into it.

But chemical works have merely grown as other works and institutions have grown, for at that time people were shown as a wonderful sight, the yard at the Post Office, from which the mail coaches, taking also passengers, started, and were expected to admire the magnitude of the arrangements; we now look on