CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.
CONTENTS
AIR AND WATER POLLUTION.
THE LAST OF THE HADDONS.
HYDERABAD AND ITS RULERS.
'PRENTICE-LIFE AT SEA.
'ONLY TRIFLES.'
A MASONIC INCIDENT.
FIGHTING FOR LIFE.
QUACK MEDICINE.
| No. 712. | SATURDAY, AUGUST 18, 1877. | Price 1½d. |
AIR AND WATER POLLUTION.
We have been lately staying at a pleasant sea-sideresort. The stretch of sands on the beach is beautiful,the houses generally well built and commodious,the accommodation for strangers excellent.With much to commend, one thing struck us asvery anomalous. There are several factories,including one or two bottle-works, and from theseare almost constantly sent forth huge volumesof dense black smoke, which according to thedirection of the wind, pour across the otherwisefair scene, and tend greatly to pollute the atmosphere.Now, this we presume to think is a seriousencroachment on public rights. Nature beneficentlyprovides a pure atmosphere, which all mayenjoy, and that will be favourable to vegetablegrowth. Despising this primary principle, andacting only from sheer selfishness, certain individuals,ordinarily known as capitalists, set up factorieswith tall brick chimneys, from which arevomited those hideously dark masses of coal-smoke,in defiance of good taste, decency, and common-sense.We had almost said in defiance of honesty,because the air of heaven is a universal inheritance,and the pollution of it for selfish ends is,morally speaking, little better than picking apocket. Yet, how much of this aggressive dishonestyis habitually practised! The air of townsand villages is polluted. Some of the most beautifulrural scenes are polluted. Over charmingdells, clothed in natural shrubbery and flowers,to which one would like to flee and be at rest, isseen hovering a pall of black smoke, projected fromsome sort of factory or a paper-mill, and doing itsbest to transform beauty into ugliness. Surely,to speak mildly, that is a public wrong.
Travelling through England, and entering whatare termed the manufacturing districts, we comeupon the Smoke Demon in full blast. Who, forexample, can forget the revolting aspect presentedby Sheffield or Wigan? The sky hidden by darksmoke, the houses begrimed, and the land blighted,as if saturated with coal-culm. Obviously, thereis a prevailing sootiness; and speculating as to howpeople can possibly live amidst such horrors,