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THE SMOKE ABATEMENT EXHIBITION. 
communicate with various persons interested in the abatement 
of the “ smoke curse,” and practically acquainted with the best 
means at present available for doing so. They also obtained 
from Mr. Whittle, barrister, a report on the existing state of the 
law regarding smoke, and the way in which it might be brought 
into action. It appears that no legal means exist for checking 
the production of smoke from private houses. But the owners 
of any chimney of a manufactory sending forth black smoke 
can be proceeded against summarily as a nuisance. In every 
division of the police a constable is told off to look after the 
smoke question. He reports on any mass of black smoke that 
he sees, and if, after the issuing of two notices to the offender, 
the nuisance is not abated, the owner of the chimney is sum- 
moned. There seems to be no doubt that the condition of 
Lambeth, and other parts along the Thames, has been largely 
improved by the action of the police, since large dense masses of 
black smoke, which used to be seen floating there, are not 
observed now. It is also provided by law, that any steamboat 
plying on the Thames can be compelled to consume its own 
smoke, and that all railways are under the same regulations. 
Soon after the issue of this report, a meeting was convened 
at the Cannon Street Hotel to enable the Committee to confer 
with manufacturers, bakers, and others who come under the 
provision of the Smoke Act. 
At this meeting it was stated that Sir Francis Knollys has 
estimated that of the 5,000,000 tons of coal annually consumed 
in London, between two and three millions of tons are wasted. 
This waste, although not occurring in manufactories, where the 
saving of coal is more carefully regarded, may very possibly occur 
with the 597,000 houses in London, possessing probably about 
three and a half millions of chimneys. 
The general opinion of the speakers at this meeting, fortified 
in most cases by actual experience, was that a large reduction in 
