82 



DR. n ANGUS SMITH ON ANCIENT AND 



important objects, which cannot be obtained without applica- 

 tion to the legislature of the country." How right these men 

 were, and how painful the consequences of waiting longer 

 before making enactments, has been seen by the inquiry of 

 the Health of Towns Commission, which has shewn a great 

 diminution of the length of life in large towns in Lancashire, 

 whilst the country in general was actually increasing in 

 strength. 



The infant labour mentioned has been put a stop to ; the 

 other evils are to be prevented before they violently seize hold 

 on us. The subject, so far now from being settled, is only 

 getting fairly begun, and it will be no easy matter to com- 

 plete it. We hear that a few cottages in the country may be 

 infected with disease from filth, even on a hill-side ; this will, 

 therefore, give us some indication of the great care that is 

 necessary in a town. The whole population, too, has changed 

 its kind of work in sixty or seventy years, and their ordinary 

 lives and habits have not sufiiciently changed with it, as 

 the progress has been made in those things chiefly which 

 have made the means of improvement, not the improvement 

 itself. 



One of the greatest sources of impurity in the atmosphere 

 is, of course, the smoke ; and it is the most difficult to deal 

 with. The black portion is bad enough, but the portion which 

 remains when the black is thoroughly burnt is also very far 

 from being a wholesome gas, containing, as it does, much 

 sulphuric acid and sulphate of ammonia. This is, even in 

 small quantities, injurious, and it may be made clear to the 

 senses by observing the action on colours ; it reddens, for 

 example, vegetable blues rapidly. When the sky is open, 

 there is a fine clear air in our streets; the gases seem rapidly 

 to follow the laws of their difi'usion, and they leave at a 

 rapidity which almost satisfies theory. There is then, no 

 doubt, a constant flow of air into the town, along all the 

 streets and roads, to make up for that great current which is 



