138 



The smoke and consequent fogs are drawbacks; and in 1306, 

 when the population did not exceed 50,000, the citizens petitioned 

 Edward I. to prohibit the use of sea coal, and he passed a law 

 making the burning of it a capital offence. In 1661, John Evelyn 

 complains in his book that on account of the increase of coal 

 smoke, the gardens no longer bear fruit ; and instances various 

 cases in which the smoke had been prejudicial to health. The 

 smoke-producing area has since then increased from three square 

 miles to ever one hundred square miles ; and the average daily- 

 consumption of coals in domestic fire-places has increased to about 

 27,000 tons, and in winter 40,000; producing a cloud of smoke 

 which frequently hangs over the town, even when it does not 

 descend in fog. During the bad fogs in 1879-80, chest affections 

 increased over 200 or even 300 per cent.; and the death rate rose 

 from 27 per cent., the rate per week, to over 35 per cent., owing 

 to dense fogs in February, 1882. We can all remember when 

 some fat animals died at an Islington Show, some few years ago, 

 from the effects of bad foggy weather. The weather and tempera- 

 ture has great effect on invalids ; and during a late severe winter, 

 a large pile of snow was cleared from the streets, and heaped in 

 one of the west-end squares, and a medical man informed me that 

 it had a marked effect on the air in the neighbouring houses, and 

 tended much to prevent the recovery of his patient in one of them. 

 I remember some time ago seeing a paper in the Lancet stating 

 that the peculiar yellow fogs were a characteristic of this part of 

 the Thames valley, and had been known a thousand years : but no 

 doubt they have been much intensified of late years. 



We have already referred to the population of London. Its 

 composition is interesting; and probably in no city in the world 

 are the rich and poor so closely situated in respect to their dwell- 

 ings or at least ivere, till the recent improvements — and yet know 



little or nothing of each other ; and it may well be said that " one 

 half of the world does not know how the other half lives." In 

 Westminster are some of the lowest haunts of the criminal classes, 

 and close at hand are some of the finest mansions. In the 

 district of Belgravia, new streets with the best class of houses have 



