MOTORS AND AIR POLLUTION [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—For some years the Spectator has conducted an able and vigorous campaign with the object of getting the pollution of the atmosphere by unburnt coal smoke, discharged from houses and factories, reduced. But there is another evil, of a similar character, rapidly growing in magnitude, which appears to be almost unheeded.
The discharge into the streets of partially burnt oil, more or less densely black and filthy, increases with the rapid increase in the use of motor vehicles. Anyone who looks can observe the very large proportion of motor vehicles, sta- tionary or moving, which unconcernedly pour this pollution into the air. To this is added the half consumed coal from the chimneys of heavy steam vehicles which are allowed to use the streets to drag trains of often two and three trucks. In any fairly busy thoroughfare the result is a distinct haze from the ground upwards, composed of unburnt carbon particles which cover the clothes and persons of pedestrians with filth.
We are solicitous, and properly solicitous, of the lives of our sea-birds and endeavour to preserve them from destruction through the carelms fouling of the ocean with oil ; should we be less solicitous of the health, and probably the lives, of the men and women and children who are forced to breathe this polluted atmosphere of the streets ? No doubt there are regulations aimed at preventing this evil ; will the Spectator assist in endeavouring to get them rigorously enforced ?
7 Moreton Gardens, S.W. 5. FRANCIS Csanueswoirra.
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