18 
changed hands, and a band of music played us from the church.” 
Giles Mansfield died in April, 1889, in his ninety-eighth year, 
and the average age at death of these ten men who took part in 
the performance in Painswick belfry was close upon 80. 
THE SMOKE NUISANCE. 
By HERBERT FLETCHER. January 29th, 1889. 
Whenever the name of England was mentioned abroad, the 
idea of a smoky atmosphere was given, and the apology was 
generally found in the fact that England lives by her manufac- 
tures and her commerce, and that it brings us wealth. The 
pestilential atmosphere of old times, due to insanitary conditions, 
bad sewerage, and crowded streets, and disadvantage of bad 
paving, had been done away with, but the smoke nuisance had 
increased in a greater ratio. When the old exterior furnaces of 
boilers went out they began to be troubled with smoke. There 
was a kind of smoke preventer used with the external furnaces, 
but, when the new internal furnaces were introduced, it was 
stated that the contrivance could not be used on account of the 
cramped furnaces. The lecturer explained the invention of Mr. 
Vicars, of Harlstown, the improvements made upon it, and his 
own modification of these improvements in the apparatus he had 
patented. He then enumerated a number of inventions to pre- 
vent smoke, including that of Mr. Proctor, of Burnley, and 
proceeded, 
In considering the smoke nuisance they ought to remember 
that the quantity of smoke was not estimated by its density ; it 
should be estimated by its continuity as much as by its density. 
Many of the mechanical stokers preduced a continuous stream of 
light smoke which inflicted a greater injury on the neighbour- 
hood than those which caused a heavy cloud of smoke for a very 
short time and then ceased. At Bolton light smoke was con- 
sidered equally a breach of the law with dense smoke, one 
minute of dense being counted as the equivalent of four minutes 
of moderately light. Passing on to the health question more in 
detail, the lecturer quoted the opinion of Sir Andrew Clark and 
other eminent authorities, and dealt with the theory that the 
destruction of smoke was necessarily followed by the production 
of obnoxious and poisonous vapours, a theory which had been 
exploded as folly by eminent scientists, but which the lecturer 
believed was the great shield under which those who made 
smoke protected themselves when they were accused of making 
much smoke. In Bolton they had had to fight on the Council 
