The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-08-27 00:00:00

ROYAL AMPHITHEATRE

At this house an English Opera Troupe is performing
in a creditable manner the English and foreign operas
common to our stage. The B9lsemian Girl opened the
campaign on Monday, and displayed to advantage the
gifts of the singers. Miss Lanza is Prima Donna, and is

quite au fait at-each part, and has a voice of some sweet-
ness and great power. The tenor, Mr. Herberte, has a
fine voice and good style, but wants much vocal teaching.
The bassi—Messrs. Dussek and Corti, acquit themselves
satisfactorily„ though it is a pity the latter would make
the Austrian Count so Irish, and insist on saying that,
" Memory is the only friend that grief kyaltz calls its
own." The chorus, though small, was quite equal to
its work, and was ably seconded by the band, under
Herr Lutz.

THE SMOKE NUISANCE QUESTION

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NORTHER TIMES,

In your reports of the proceedings in the Police-court on
Wednesday, was a case in which a Mr. Brancker was sum-
moned at the instance of Inspector Wignall, for creating a
smoke which caused annoyance to a Mr. Jackson, who has
for half a century occupied a very nice, and what was, some
fifty years ago, a pretty cottage, with as pretty a garden, in
Roscommon-street. The spread of civilisation, however,
involves also the increase of mankind ; and Mr. Jackson's
has been no exception to the general fate of such places in
the immediate vicinity (let alone the centre) of large towns.
Houses, cottages, courts, and other buildings, adapted to the
wants of a growing neighbourhood, have sprung up all
around Mr. Jackson's once delightful suburban retreat, and
the necessary sequences have followed. The sun's rays
have been shut out from his pretty garden—soot from the
neighbouring cottage chimneys, aggravated, no doubt, by
the smoke emitted from the chimney before alluded to, have
all combined to render Mr. Jackson's horticultural estab-
lishment very different from what it was in days of yore.
No doubt Mr. Jackson has felt much annoyed with
Mr. Brancker's chimney, which is, after all, a trifle ; that
he has, moreover, many friends on the health committee,
and displays the most bountiful hospitality towards their
officers ; but, of course, this latter could not exercise any
influence on the action of those high-minded individuals
who are entrusted with the duty of enforcing the decrees
of the smoke committee—a committee who deserve every
praise for the:mauner in which they have hitherto carried
out the provisions of their act of Parliament. They have
succeeded in freeing Liverpool from what, on all hands,
was an acknowledged and an intolerable nuisance, and they
have done this in the most considerate manner. The
sable canopy which used to overhang the town and river,
like a funeral pall, has been swept away, and our noble
buildings stand out in bold relief in the bright summer
sunshine, whilst the Mersey and its adjacent shores are
viewed, not through dense masses of carbon, but in all the
sparkling beauty of nature. I again repeat that, for
having done this, without causing annoyance or cost to
the manufacturers or the owners of furnaces of whatever
description, by enforcing the adoption of some one of the
many costly patents, the committee deserve the best
thanks, not only of the whole body of the furnace owners,
but the public at large. But it may be quite possible to
put an undue tension on the law, and thus subject indi_
viduals to unnecessary punishment. From all I can
learn, I fear this has been, to some extent, the case with
Mr. Brancker, whose witnesses deposed that his chimney
made no more smoke than would issue from a common
house chimney. I make allusion to this matter in
the most friendly spirit to the smoke committee; and I
trust that the high character they have hitherto so justly
deserved for carrying out their act of parliament, with all
due consideration and moderation, will not be made ship-
wreck of by listening to the grievances of fldgity octoge-
narians, who think that the world ought to stand still.
Let the committee be guided as they hitherto have been
by the cordially digested councils of their officers, and
they will avoid the danger of acting oppressively to indi-
viduals on the one hand, or of permitting a public nuisance
to exist on the other.—Yours, &c., X. Y. Z.