The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-04-10 00:00:00

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E4e Ilart4trn fititto

THURSDAY, APRIL 10, 1866

THERE are few things which mark the advance of
civilisation more than men turning from fire.
eating to the consumption of smoke. Such transi-
tions are no less wonderful and necessary in the
progress of science, than they are in the preserva-
tion of life, and that that which is so astounding
in its moral and commercial results should have
taken us fully a century to accomplish is not at all
surprising. We know of no nuisance which
renders itself more intelligible to our senses than

smoke.

It not only takes the most arbitary
possession of our nasal organs, but it attacks
furniture, clothes, and bids defiance to that
cleanness of both house and person which is so
essential to health and comfort. WATT, PITT,
WARD, and numbers of other scientific celebrities,
gave their attention not only to the removal of this
nuisance, but absolutely thought of converting
the smoke poured forth from large factory
chimneys into mineral tar, varnish, and pitch.
Tar works were erected at Dudley Wood
colliery, and iron works by Lord DUNDONALD
and Company, on terms which show the
extraordinary value of the vapour which is
now thrown away, The ironmasters furnished the
tar works with coals gratis, and received in return
the coke it produced, the proprietors of the tar
works having the smoke only for their labour and
interest of money. In the process employed in
this manufacture, twenty tons of coals were used
each day, and the return made each week was
about twenty-eight barrels of tar, weighing 21 cwt.
each, and twenty-one barrels of pitch, of equal
weight, but in some cases the tar produced was
equal to one•eighth of the coal.

We have alluded to these facts to show the
unpardonable waste of fuel which is going on
this smoke is allowed to pass away through
ter chimneys without heed. we all

know that the bituminous properties of coal con-
t valuable portions of its heating
power; and that the more perfect the combustion,
the further it will go in generating steam, or in
any other chemical process. The knowledge of
these facts, coupled with the evidence obtained
by the Smoke Nuisance Committees of the House
of Commons, have, no doubt, induced the Legis-
lature to pass the Smoke Prevention Acts now in
force. And to the Corporate authorities of Liver-
pool we are, in no mean degree, indebted for the
vigorous course taken by the PALMERSTON Admin.
stration, for the suppression of the public

stitute th

grievance, and iitikvidual blindness, complained
of in tts and all towns. The first Parlia-
mentary in 1819, and on
its report a bill was passed, 1 and 2 of GEORGE IV.,
cap. 41, entitled—" An act for giving greater
"facility in the prosecution and abatement of
" nuisances, arising from furnaces, used in the
" working of steam engines." In this statute,
which came in force on the Ist of September,
1821, and which has not been repealed, the
infliction of penalties, and awarding costs, was left
to the discretion of the court before which the
indictment was brought. This law, however, was
evaded by raising the height of chimneys, putting
less green coal into the furnace, keeping furnace
doors open, and a variety of other paltry and
costly expedient, all of which, the Smoke Act of
1854 was passed to sweep away, and bring into
operation some really scientific remedy.
That smoke is one of the worst enemies to health,
and that the perfect combustion of fuel is the best
friend of the manufacturers and steam employers,
has never once been denied since the subject was
first taken up by WATT and his cotemporaries. The
difficulty has been to procure a perfect preventive,
to up-root prejudice, and convince the owners
of smoke-producing furnaces that they would be
gainers by the adoption of a really perfect smoke-
consuming furnace. These obstacles to sanitary
and economical reforms are now removed. Engi-
neers may, and will, cavil as much as they please;
boiler-makers and chimney-builders will shrug up
their shoulders and mutter innumerabie doubts;
steam-employers will denounce the arbitrary law
which says :—" Smoke is a nuisance, let
" there be no more smoke ;" and the well-paid
black vapour detectors will sneer at that which is
to render their vigilance unnecessary ; but there
are perfect smoke consumers in practical operation
in this Borough, which bid defiance to all preju-
diced assailants. The North Western Railway
Company's engine at the Waterloo Station has
been placed beyond the reach of the law. Others,
with furnaces of the same description, have defied
the watchfulness of smoke inspectors for upwards
of two years, and with these palpable realities
before us, what remains to be done? Why should
our streets, landing-stage, and houses, be enveloped
day and night in clouds of health and property-
destroying vapour? That Sir CHARLES Woon
should, only a few days since, have declared in the
House of Commons, that there was nothing suffi-
ciently satisfactory discovered to induce the

Government to attempt the prevention of smoke
in the Royal Navy, appears very strange. We are
not surprised at the ignorance displayed by the
General Board of Health, after reading their
" twelve conclusions" recently published, but we are
at a loss to understand how it is that heavy penal-
are inflicted on the subject daily, throughout the
manufacturing districts, when a Cabinet Minister
declares in the House of Commons that a suffi-
ciently satisfactory remedy for a public nuisance
has not been discovered ! The General Board of
Health are floundering about in oceans of " un-
" burnt carbon," carbonic oxide, or half-burnt
carbon, little and big boilers, imperical rules,
scientific principles, and mercy knows what be-
sides, while they emphatically declare that nothing
but the force of law will induce practical men to
depart from the beaten track, and obey an enact-
ment in a matter, which they themselves labour
harder than " practical men," to show is wholly
irremediable.

This is a state of things which ought not to be
longer tolerated by the employers of steam in
these coal consuming districts. Men should not
be fined for offences which our law-makers are the
first to tell us cannot be avoided. Or if there is a
cure for the complaint, they ought to be compelled
to recognise it publicly, no matter how strong their
predilections to the ccntrary may be. Sir CHARLES
WOOD, and the Health Commissioners can come to
Liverpool and see for themselves what has been
done here. Those who chose to employ the smoke
consuming furnace, can laugh at the " officers spe-
" cially qualified" to enforce the law, and instead of
trampling on the inventive genius of the country,
and telling the people to pass by the rights of
patentees, we think it would be much more
becoming in the officials of Somerset House to
suggest to the Government the more encouraging,
we may say honest, course, of purchasing the
efficient invention, and throwing it open to the
thousands who have paid in fines twice the sum
the royalty would have cost. Liverpool, Manches-
ter, Leeds, York, Sheffield, and other manufacturing
towns have been most unjustly persecuted under
the Act of 1854, and that law must be altered, or a
practical remedy for the whole country adopted,
without further delay.