One hundred years ago
Lord Wolmer is a useful man. He is going to propose a Royal Commission to inquire into fogs, and the possibility of preventing them. It is quite possible, as everybody knows, to turn them into mists, if only Londoners will give up burning coal; but will they? Mr James Knowles thinks they will, and proposes that they should be allowed only gas, to be prepared at a distance, and coke; but the doctors will sit upon that project. Coke poisons some constitutions. Our only serious chance is, we fancy, some system of smoke-drainage, under which the soot should be wetted and carried off by pipes, to be utilised as manure; but science has not invented the machinery, and we are already nearly taxed to death. Perhaps, however, the House of Commons will help us by a Standing Order directing that carbon in the air shall not approach the House within four miles. The House, being democratic, does not care a straw what it spends on its own comfort, and the electors never think of commenting on its luxuriousness. Just fancy if the Queen ordered all air to be pumped into Windsor Castle through six inches of wool at the national expense, what a howl there would be!
The Spectator, 28 February 1891
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