6 Notes and Reflections during a Tour : — 



source*, and if steam or hot water were objected to, hot air 

 might be supplied in the same manner, and subject to the 

 same regulations, as the supply of coal gas. Coal gas, besides 

 serving for lighting the streets, might, we should imagine, an- 

 swer every purpose for the greater part of French cookery. 

 In all great cities provision should be made for the introduc- 

 tion of subways, which will ultimately be found nearly as 

 essential as sewers. The time may probably also arrive, when 

 all the footways of the principal streets in European towns 

 will be protected from rain by verandas of glass, projected 

 from the houses. In general these verandas should not be 

 projected immediately over the first or shop story, which 

 would, where the shops fronted the south, accumulate too 

 much heat ; but higher, and over the second or third story, so 

 as not to interfere with the free circulation of air. Such ve- 

 randas would give a line of lofty, slender, iron columns along 

 the kerb stones of the pathways, and these columns might at 

 the same time serve as lamp posts. By having covered 

 excavations in the pavement near the bases of the columns, to 

 receive pots, boxes, or a mass of good soil, some individuals 

 might cover these columns, and also, if they chose, the under 

 side of the veranda, with the most elegant creeping plants, or 

 with vines, pompions, or gourds, f 



There is, on the whole, more of dignity in the architecture 

 of Paris, than in that of London ; because the building ma-* 



* In 1812 B. Deacon, the patentee of a mode of heating and ventilating 

 by air forced through hot water, proposed to supply hot ah- to all the 

 houses in Red Lion Square, from a small ornamental building to be erected 

 in the centre of the square, and worked by the parish paupers. The thing 

 was perfectly practicable, but no one paid the slightest attention to the pro- 

 posal. In the present state of knowledge on the subject of heating, nothing 

 could be easier than to supply every room in every house of the London 

 squares, from an obelisk in the centre of the square, with as much hot 

 water as would keep the air of the room to the temperature of 60°. All 

 London may be heated in the same manner, at, as we believe, incomparably 

 less expense of fuel than at present. There would then be only one fire in 

 each house for the purpose of cooking, and, in consequence, much less smoke 

 in the atmosphere. Indeed, the hot-water system might be most profitably 

 applied by all the occupiers of houses containing five or six rooms, as it would 

 save all the fire-places and fires, except one for the kitchen, from which 

 the hot water might be made to circulate all over the house ; or it might 

 heat air in a box to be so circulated, This also was long ago proposed by 

 Count Chabannes, but excited no attention. 



f The same thing might now be done in London, by placing a climbing 

 plant, a Cobce^a for example, in a tub in the coal-cellar, under the pavement, 

 and leading its stem through a small hole to the lamp post ; but we doubt 

 if the effect would be worth the trouble. Guarding such plants from 

 injury would amuse the police, and at last refine and polish the manners 

 of mischievous persons, and all such as would, if flowers were planted in 

 Kensington gardens, gather them if not prevented. 



