678 
NOXIOUS VAPOURS. 
strange if I were to use such an expression as that both 
agriculture and commerce were still in a state of infancy. 
We have yet many more sources of wealth and many more 
means of producing wealth to open out, than at present 
exist; and I may also add that many of those sources are, 
in my opinion, at the present moment entirely unknown. 
Take, for instance, the case of the sewage of our great towns ; 
and, above all, take that of London; it would hardly be 
believed, so extraordinary a thing is it, that up to this 
present moment it is uncertain whether the enormous 
amount of wealth which is undoubtedly contained in that 
sewage can or cannot be realised, and the most important 
questions of health connected with it are at this moment 
unsolved. We are gradually, it is true, getting towards 
a solution. For a long time we were content, in a manner 
so slovenly as to be unworthy of any amount of civilisation, 
to allow that great mass of sewage not only to escape from 
our land, but to poison the noblest of our rivers, upon which 
a great city was built; and it was only four years ago, when 
it pleased Providence to remind us of our duties by causing 
old Father Thames to give us notice of his displeasure, by 
sending up one of the most abominable and protracting 
stenches that ever entered the nostrils of mankind, that we 
set about a work of legislation which involved the expenditure 
of millions of money, but the consequence of which will be 
that, in all future times, no part of that immense mass of 
sewage will find its way into the river; but the Thames will 
become again what it was originally, a pure and beautiful river/’ 
NOXIOUS VAPOURS. 
The deleterious effects produced on the organization of 
both animals and vegetables by gaseous emanations, are well 
known to those living in the neighbourhood of works where 
either the manufacture of certain chemical compounds is car¬ 
ried on, or the smelting of certain metals takes place, as of tin 
and copper. The legislature, with the view to prevent this de¬ 
struction of life and health, during the last session appointed 
a committee to inquire into the injury resulting from these 
noxious vapours, and the report has just been published. 
The following is the most important portion of it. 
The committee think that it would be most desirable that 
the laws respecting nuisances generally should be consolidated 
and made uniform throughout the country; but whether 
this be practicable or not, there are certain points on which 
amendment appears to them to be urgently required. They 
