398 Notes for the Month. [Ocx. 



(now finished) to Messrs. Longman, for six thousand guineas'." Globe. 

 It may be said: and, if it were sworn, we would not believe it. 



The wretched egg-shell style of building houses, which modern foppery and 

 parsimony has introduced among us of late years, in London, is extending 

 itself, it appears, to America. In the course of the last week (at home), a 

 large portion of new brick work, belonging to some of the rascally edifices 

 that are running up about Spa Fields, came down upon the labourers who 

 were building it ! the case not having gone on to the proper time for 

 crushing future hirers, or inhabitants : and the New York Advertiser 

 describes the falling down, in that city, of " one of those miserable shells 

 which modern meanness has substituted for substantial edifices," just as 

 the workmen were putting the last touch to it, " finishing slating the 

 roof!" One man was killed on this occasion, and five seriously injured. 

 A considerable crowd, however, collected, who looked sharp for the 

 speculator; and it is supposed that (although they did not find him) 

 the " demonstration " exhibited will not be without its general effect. 

 The American Paper very justly (as it seems to us) observes, that the 

 safety of all classes of the community, calls for a penal, law upon this sub- 

 ject ; and that persons employed upon such houses are exposed even to more 

 danger than those who become resident in them. " Our firemen" the 

 Editor says, in particular, " who are daring enough upon firm and well 

 built edifices, will be justified if they leave such traps as these to their fate." 



The indifference, however, to personal danger which is displayed by labour- 

 ers of almost every class (unless it be some danger that certainly and presently 

 exhibits itself), would be matter of surprise, were its manifestation less 

 incessant. It is scarcely three months past since all the science of London, 

 and Paris was rampant about the new " Disinfecting Agents " discovered 

 the liqueurs Labarraque ; the operation of which was so rapid and 

 powerful, that accidents from putridity or unwholesome air were to be 

 considered at an end : the most poisonous common sewer, or vault, or 

 drain, was cured instantaneously by their exhibition ! The experiments 

 made on some of the Paris " Egouts " surprised all Europe ; and it was 

 under calculation how much it would cost to keep the streets of Edin- 

 burgh sweet by the year beginning at five o'clock in the morning ; as 

 well as whether it might not be possible (now they have got a " Con- 

 stitutional" government) to do something for Lisbon. Now the use 

 to which we turn discoveries like this, is curiously exemplified by 

 the papers of to-day (August 5th). Tho Globe quotes from a weekly 

 paper, the Gazette of Health, a recipe for a cheaper <; disinfecting liquor " 

 than those " advertised for purchase" (those of Labarraque) a mixture 

 of oxymuriatic acid, with nitric acid and water, instead of the choluret 

 of soda, or choluret of lime : so that it appears the advantage of em- 

 ploying these safeguards is not at all lost sight of or forgotten. We then 

 come to the Morning Journals, which contain, first, a notice, headed 

 " Dreadful Accident from Foul Air," taken from the Journal des Debats ; 

 from which it appears that seven persons have just been destroyed in 

 emptying a sewer under the House of Correction at Riom : this is in the 

 country where the discovery originally came from. And, secondly, an 

 account, that at the soap manufactory of Messrs. Crossfield and Fell, in 

 Warrington, " Three men who were engaged in stirring a boiler, into 

 which vitriol had been poured to bleach the soap, fell down in consequence 

 of the emitted stench ; and, before assistance could be had, the contents 



