WARMING AND VENTILATION. 



137 



and comely countenances — forming a contrast with 

 those of Buckinghamshire, where fuel was exceed- 

 ingly scanty and high-priced before tlie extension 

 of inland navigation, so that the laboring classes 

 suffered extreme hardship from this privation, and 

 are of a stature so inferior, that militia-men, by act 

 of parliament, are admissible at a lower standai-d 

 than in the rest of England. To the ancient pro- 

 fusion of peat, coal, and wood, throughout their 

 generally bleak and exposed country, has been at- 

 tributed the acuteness and activity that proverbially 

 distinguish the personable staUvorth natives of 

 Yorkshire. Their average height exceeds that of 

 Devon and Cornwall men, who live in a much mild- 

 er climate. The Irish having very impoliticly 

 destroyed their woods, says King, and stone-coal 

 being found only in a few places, they could hardly 

 live without some bogs. These, however, covered 

 a tenth part of the country in the doctor's time. 

 That the national fuel is still plentiful, and near 

 every man's door, is seen in the prevalence of mas- 

 culine forms, and an oriental cast of mind, among 

 his countrymen. The Russ-Slavon is of a middle 

 size, clumsy, but vigorous; the Pole-Slavon, from 

 the influence of superior climate, and a less stinted 

 supply of tiring, is taller and more graceful. The 

 Norwegians are a well lodged people. The poor- 

 est dwelling has a wooden floor, glass windows, 

 and an iron kakle or stove. Though living in a 

 more increment region, yet, from their greater dex- 

 terity in the production of indoor climate, they are 

 a better grown race than the northwestern Scottish 

 Highlanders, among whom fuel formerly was pro- 

 cured with great difliculty, and consumed as now, 

 in the rudest and most unthrifty manner. In France, 

 enjoying a warmer sun, but 'where the inhabitants 

 enilure much privation from a scarcity of firing, 

 the average height of a man, according to M. Que- 

 telet, does not exceed five feet four inches. In the 

 Netherlands fuel is more plentiful and easier pro- 

 cured, and there the average height rises to 5 feet 

 Hg inches, and in England, that has an abundance of 

 coal, the average height is upwards of 5 feet 9 

 inches. In spite of the obstacles arising from the 

 rigor of their seasons and uncleanly habits, the 

 Swedish peasants attain a healthy maturity, and ap- 

 pear characterized by sturdiness of form, and the 

 most athletic stature ; many of them seem to belong 

 to a race of giants with nerves of iron.* Their 

 inexhaustible forests make fuel abundant; and they 

 use their store with skilful economy. 



The effect of artificial heat on the great scale, in 

 ameliorating climate and improving the general 

 health of towns, is also most remarkable. It al- 

 most reverses the order of nature, and makes a 

 town most healthy, when its atmosphere appears 

 to be the most insalubrious. Notwithstanding the 

 palpable contamination of the air, from ?he im- 

 mense volumes of deleterious gas that issue from 

 its m)Tiads of chimneys, and the numberless other 

 sources of pollution to which its dense population 

 are exposed, the greater healthfulness of London, 

 when compared with the country, in winter, is a 

 fact that may almost be considered as established 

 by experiment; and which has been accounted for 



* Clarke. Travels in Scandinavia, p. 109. 



IS 



from the higher degree of warmth that is maintain- 

 ed in every house by more numerous llres, from the 

 radiation of heat from their walls into the street, 

 and from the better ventilation which this agency 

 produces. Yet, with this advantage, who can deny 

 the frightful waste of health and life produced in a 

 large portion of its population, through living 

 in ill-ventilated apartments, often fatally aggravat- 

 ed by noxious exhalations from putrid decompos- 

 ing matter in drains and in streets. But in truth, the 

 same causes are producing the same suffering and 

 mortality in town and countiy every where. 



Leaving Falconer and his disciples in possession 

 of their dogma, that governments may stamp the 

 manners, but it is the air they breathe which moulds 

 the form, temper, and genius of a people, if we 

 may go so far with the ingenious enthusiasts as to 

 admit, that warmth exerts a considerable influence 

 on our physical, if not also on our mental condition, 

 the formation and regulation of artificial climate, 

 will then assume the character of an art for deve- 

 loping and expanding the mind and the body, for 

 preserving health, and prolonging life; and the 

 skilful 'practice of the art, as a means of saving 

 fuel, will become essential not to the well-being 

 only, but to the existence of many communities. 



It is obvious, for example, that if fuel in Buck- 

 inghamshire had been used with perfect skill, no 

 other way remained of removing the general star- 

 vation than to procure, if they could, the aliment 

 of fire in greater quantity; but if the ancient mode 

 of burning coal or wood were the same as that prac- 

 tised now, then it is certain that four-fifths of its 

 effect was thrown away. By a more perfect mode 

 of using firing, therefore, its effect might have 

 been made five times greater, which would have 

 been the same thing as making wood or coal five 

 times more abundant. By skilful management of 

 their scanty supply, the people of Bucks would have 

 been as tall, and have enjoyed equally robust health, 

 equal chance of long life, and equal comfort, with 

 the inhabitants of Lancashire; and their maidens 

 would have been as distinguished for their shape, 

 symmetry, and pleasing faces, as the northern beau- 

 ties, whose personal attractions were developed and 

 preserved by burning five times more coal. Nay, 

 if the Lancastrian women themselves, amidst their 

 wealth of fuel, had studied its economical applica- 

 tion, and used a fifth i)art only of what they did, 

 then, instead of encountering the fierce extremes 

 of heat and cold every lime they approached their 

 blazing fires, they would have moved in an equa- 

 bly warmed and genial climate, with exemption 

 from diseases, engendered by noxious currents of 

 cold air, that destroy some of the fairest works of 

 creation in the county palatine and throughout our 

 island. 'O, happy Laplander,' exclaims Linnaeus, 

 ' you live contented, in your sequestered corner, to 

 a cheerful, vigorous, and long extended old age, 

 unacquainted wth the numerous disorders which 

 constantly infest the rest of Europe. You live in 

 woods like the fowls of heaven, and neither sow 

 nor reap, yet the beneficent Deity hath provided for 

 you most bountifully. Your drink is the crystal 

 stream; your food, in spring fresh-taken fish, in 

 summer the milk of the reindeer, in autumn and 

 winter the ptawnigan and the rein-deer's flesh, new- 



