IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF GAS. 
care and expense on the manipulation after having gained 
a footing. 
If sanguine reports and tempting promises could be taken 
as evidence, we might congratulate the public on the birth 
of a company which throws all its predecessors into the 
shade. It is styled The Cardinal and Central Gas Light- 
Ventilation, Animal Charcoal, and Carbonaceous Manure 
Company," and is about to shed its light upon the me- 
tropolis. Mr. Radley, the engineer, undertakes on behalf 
of this Company, to supply a better gas than that of the 
Western Gas Company, at a maximum of four shillings a 
thousand cubic feet,'^ and offers to guarantee, if encouraged 
by the parochial authorities, that " the price for gas, after 
the lapse of five years, will not exceed three shillings per 
thousand cubic feet I" 
The public advantages of a fair and free competition are 
universally admitted, and on this ground it would appear 
desirable at once to encouragf! the advances of new com- 
panies. But in the present instance, it is requisite, as a 
prudent precaution, to histitute a comparison between the 
respective claims of the several competitors to public con- 
fidence^ before permission is given to any of them to inflict 
upon the public the inconvenience attending the opening of 
the ground in every street in which it may be proposed to 
lay down the pipes. This license certainly ought not to be 
granted unless with a well-grounded prospect of future 
benefit. — Pharm, Journ. 
