rdttri tg fit etitur.
SMOKE WITISA.NCE.
1 Adam Street, Adelpht; 10th August 1853. Six-The article in the Times of this morning on the Smoke Nuisance has hit the solution of the difficulty, and legislation on the subject may be rendered very definite. That London has a good atmosphere apart from the smoke, may easily be verified by those "who don't go home till morning," or may chance to rise at day-dawn in summer. To put raw coal on our fires, in which the chemical ingredients are not in due proportion for combustion, is about as unphilosophic as to put raw pota- toes into our stomachs. In either case there will be indigestion.
Smoke is costly, if not to the makers of it, to the general public-in health and cleanliness. Coke, or cooked fuel in contradistinction to raw, and setae va- rieties of the more bituminous coal, burn without smoke. If it be really the fact that smokeless fuel costs more than the smoky quality, (a doubtful point,) it would be fair to lay a tax on the consumers-or more simply, on the vendors-of the smoky fuel, so as to reduce them both to one pnce, or give the advantage to the smokeless in proportion to the damaging power of the smoky burned within the precincts of the Metropolis. The consequence would be, that coal-owners would become fuel-mann- facturers on the large scale, and with very considerable economy in many ways.
To set a watch upon smoky chimnies is but an invidious affair. You catch the brewers and the proprietors of steam-engines only ; while Punch tells us, in a diatribe on the horrors of campbine lamps, that one of them "equals the smoke of three kitchen chimnies,"-overlooking what he appa- rently considers the minor enormities of breweries. The problem is, who are the great coal-consumers ? If they turned out to be the owners of dwellings -a huge agglomeration of small smoke-makers-it would be of little use to attack the large manufacturers. Catching the offending fuel, and putting it under tariff at it arrives, is simpler than tracing out its offences through all the purlieus of London. The saving in fuel would then be viewed from an- other aspect, and consumers could calculate cost of furnace alteration or re- construction versus daily outlay. A "translucent" Thames and a pellucid atmosphere are possible things to London during the absence of rain. I am, Sir, yours faithfully, W. BRIDGES ADAMS.
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