The Express.
London, England, 1867-02-01 00:00:00

Li IN Dt IN ;

I; tnudy househo:,:,:s picked at rand nn
out of a London street or si.barb and told that
they were personally responsible for the deti•
Meanies in the lightilq: it their district, their
censor would be probably not by a smile of incre- •
diditv. If the evils arising from the quality of .
the ;,as supplied, evils so coastantly and so bitterly
cong.laim-d of, were laid :it the same doors; if
vitiated air, unwholesome rooms, spoilt goods. and
pallid faces were all charged upon our twenty
typica! s..apegoats, they would cry aloud against
the ain!nst and sweeping. character of the charge
Yet it a at simple fact that. ;is the law stands, any
vest: v or district board of works, or any twenty :
inhabitant householders, may call upon the Home
&recta:: to remedy defects in the quantity or
'leant.- of their gas supply. That high officiil is •
boiled. within one month of the receipt of the
cow: • tint, to appoint a competent person as in-
speet• r. who, after giving the peecant gas company i
twent, -four hours' notice, shall examine works, I
machinery, and system of manufacture and supply.
Fines and penalties are to be enforced if facilities'
are not given for this examination, and these are
made heavier if the complaint is proved to be just.
The Metropolis Gas Act when centirming the
division of London into districts, each to be sup-
plitsl h.. only one company, sought to protect the
consumer from the evils of monopoly by placing
redress in lais own hands, and by providing strin-
gent r:.ies for the government and regulations of
the coe:;,:inies. Yet in spite of these precautions
the ei.mplaints against our metropolitan gas
arraneetnents are as helpless and vague as if we
had Men handed over tied and bound to irrespon-
sible despots, who may sentence us to an at -
phere rre or vitiated, to light or twilight, dusk
or darkness, without compunction or appeal. As
usual. the fault lies with the public. Outside the
City it does not appear that any attempt has been
made to enforce the provisions of the Metro-
polis Gas Act against the companies; every-
body'a business has met its usual fate,
and :ifter grumbling sorely and suffering much we
go on sullenly as we are, or take refuge in wax
candles or moderator lamps. Yet gas should be
the convenient, the most economic, and the
most brilliant of artificial lights ; and as its advo-
cates tell iit it may be made the purest and most
wholmo:ne, it will be useful to consider how its
partial unpopularity can be remedied, as well as
the va'.•:, of the schemes suggested for improving
its supply. Among the most prominent of these
has been the fusing the capitals of the different
gas companies into one sum ; that sum to be cal-
culated not upon the money expended in the
several undertakings, but upon the cost at which a
new co:up:my could be formed, and then allowing
dividends only upon the net capital as reduced.
Apart :rum the apparent injustice of this proposal,
it is not clear that the transfer of our gas supply
from its present hands—arother item in the
scheme—A ould in itself be a benefit to the public.
London, we are told, is supplied with gas by
thirteen companies, with an aggregate capital of
six n:illions, besides the sums borrowed upon the
credit of their undertakings. Up to the year 1857
these associations indulged in a competition which
was ruinous to themselves and prejudicial to the
public. When the mains or pipes of two or more
companies were laid in the same thoroughfares,
escapes of gas not unfrequently caused the pave-
ments covering each set of pipes to be taken up, to
ascertain from which the escape came. This, added
to the frequent interference with traffic and sus-
pension of business through laying distinct mains
and pipes led to considerable dissatisfaction, and the
companies nut of the City finally agreed to confine
themselves to separate districts. Liverpool, it may
be mentioned, had adopted this principle some
ten years before, when the two companies then
supplying the town undertook to amalgamate, and
sell gas at a specified rate, on the House of Com-
mons rejecting an application for an act enabling a
third company to enter into competition. There
have been acts for London fixing the price per
thousand feet and limiting dividends ; acts defining
the number of wax candles and the number of can-
dles of sperm to which the illuminating power of
our gas should be equal; but matters are still held
to be unsatisfactory, and consumers would gladly
welcome a searching investigation into the quantity
and quality of the London supply. Now it happens
that the principal people concerned expressed their
willingness last session to abide by the verdict of a
scientific commission as to the degree of purity at
which it is practicable to supply gas to the public,
and it seems desirable that no further legis-
lation should be attempted until this is
done. It is maintained, too, that the existing
mode of purification by per-oxide of iron is
as efficient a mode as can be adopted without
making the act of purification itself a worse
nuisance than it is ; and that to attain a greater
freedom from sulphur by the use of hydrate of
lime would involve unpleasant smells, and, through
necessitating alterations in the works, would raise
the price of gas. The maximum of sulphur in that
supplied now is said not to be more than twenty
grains in every hundred feet; and the example of
the South Kensington Museum is quoted to prove
that this cannot be very injurious to property or
life. A report upon the effect of the gas used
there, and bearing the well-knovn names of
Faraday, Tyndall, Holman, and others, was pre-
sented to the house in 1859. It was there stated
that the gas supplied contained 224 grains of
sulphur in every hundred feet, but that the pictures
remained uninjured ; and that the mode of lighting
might, with proper ventilation, be continued and
increased with impunity. Accordingly, there are
now some 4,000 gaslights in use nightly at South
Kensington.
• • • •

But these arguments and examples, however con-
clusive theoretically, do not satisfy every-day peo-
ple with every-day noses and eyee,and those twenty
householders would do yeoman'■ service for the
rest of us, who would exercise the right given
them by law, and compel Mr. Walpole to obtain
an authentic report from a qualified official in-
spector on the condition of our gas supply, and the
causes which prevent its meeting the requirements
of the day.

-
And what any twenty Britons may do for the
districts in which they live it is to be hoped parlia-
ment will do for the metropolis at large. Informa-
tion is urgently required respecting our London
gas supply ; and few things have proved this more
strongly than the proceedings before the select com-
mittee of last session. Some of the calculations it
evoked were based upon the supposition that all
existing forms of supply would obligingly disap-
war if an entirely new experiment were allowed to
he carried out, and flattering siatisties were autho-
ritatively put forward, which were subse-
quently proved to be gratuitous and unsound.
It is unnecessary at this time to canvass
the advantages or demerits of a proposal
to make a corporate body at once the manufac-
turers and vendors of gas and the supreme judges
of its purity. We know that at Manchester and
one or two other places in which the gas supply is
in the hands of the local authorities it is satisfac-
torily managed ; but our experience of metropolitan
boards and vestries is not such as to encourage us
to look to them for improved or enlightened control
in social matters. The remedy for existing griev-
ances is not a hap-hazard legislation which may
involve us in evils a thousand fold worse than
those it is proposed to abrogate, but a careful and
skilled examination into the merits of the case.
The arrangements for lighting London are ad-
mitted to be susceptible of improvement. Rea-
sonably or unreasonably, we all wish for an
increase in efficiency and • reduction in cost, and
our only chance of securing these advantages upon
a reasonable and permanent basis is that weshould
understand what our rights and grievances really
are. The drawback to mere parliamentary dispu-
tations upon such matters asthe unebeforeusisthat
they too often savourof advocacy, and are tinged with
personal interest. This may be especially looked
for when it is proposed to confiscate private pro-
perty secured by previous acts of parliament as a
sacrifice to the common good ; and it is not won-
derful that a suggestion which, if adopted, would
have gravely prejudiced gigantic interests met
with strenuous and successful opposition. All this,
however, is beside the broad question of public