26 imiksidknt's address. 



iuquiiy is large and momentous. On the one hand we have a 

 liost of manufaetuiing and trading industries, while on the other 

 hand we have the comfort and the health of thousands of indivi- 

 duals, and the question of preserving the crops and the trees 

 from destruction. 



Vegetation is desolated and human comfort is seriously inter- 

 fered with by the fumes of works and factories. The great man- 

 ufacturing industries have done much to pollute the streams and 

 the rivers which once gave beauty to tlie landscape and promoted 

 the health of the people. But air is invaded as well as water, 

 and breathing as well as drinking becomes a peril. That vege- 

 gation perishes, and that human enjoyment is seriously curtailed, 

 in consequence of the discharge of what may be termed artificial 

 gases, cannot be denied. But while the destruction of vegetable 

 life is patent to the observer, the effect on animal life is not so 

 obvious and direct. A depressing odour, occasioning nausea, 

 headache, lassitude, and other symptoms, may not be imme- 

 diately identified with disease, but it is certain that no one will 

 remain in a disagreeable or vitiated atmosphere who can possibly 

 escape it. 



Serious damage of a pecuniary kind is thus inflicted on the 

 owners of house properiy. If safety and comfori are only to be 

 sought in Hight, we shall have a wider gulf than ever between 

 the rich and the poor, the former removing to localities wliich 

 are free from trade nuisances, while the latter will be massed 

 together in large town populations subject to those annoyances 

 and dangers from which the wealthy are able to escape. 



Commercial, sanitary, and social questions are thus connected 

 with this topic : How the interests of the manufacturer may be 

 rendered consonant with the well being of the community at 

 large ! Among the facts wliich show how real and yet how 

 subtle is tlie mischief which arises from what we may call im- 

 l)crfectly regulated works may be mentioned the following. 

 JJy experiment it has been shown tliat sulphurous acid, even 

 if gieatly diluted, does mucli injur}' to vegetation. Professor 

 Stockhardt considered that the proportion of this acid in the ail* 

 ought not to exceed one part in two hundred and fifty thousand. 



