The Sun.
London, England, 1855-01-03 00:00:00

from floating carbon. We have still the reeking
chimneys of the 390,000 and odd houses of the metro-
polis to keep np the disinel cloud for ever hanging over
us. The question eatu.,-.lly arises, —Can we put out
the smoke of the domestic hearth ? Dr. Arnett has at,
tempted to solve this question by the introduction of
his improvement upon Cutler's smoke-consuming fire-
grate. We have seen this burning on the premises of
Mr. Edwards, the manufacturer, in Poland-street, and
we can safely say that if it will work as well under do-
mestic supervision as it does there nothing more is re-
quired. The grate is the ordinary fire-pace, having
underneath it, in lieu of the under bars, a square iron
coal-box, which has a moveable bottom. In the morn-
ing this box is filled with coal, and the fire is then built
and lit in the ordinary manner. As it consumes,
instead of replenishing it with coals placed upon
the top, by means of a bent poker, which acts
as a lever, you press up the bottom of the coalbox
and thus supply as much fuel as you require below
the fire ; of course there is no smoke, and it is war.
ranted to burn for 14 hours with 2.01 b. of coal. An ordi-
nary fire is generally allowed a medium-sieed scuttle a
day, which must weigh from 2Slb. to 301 b. The saving
of fuel, accordiug to this calculation, is between 40 and
50 per cent. Of course, if there is no smoke, there is
no soot produced, and therefore no fear of chimneys
catching fire, with their inevitable resultss—horrid fire
engines and officious policemen, who mulct you at
about the rate of ss. per spark.
We do not see why in the course of time the smoke
nuisance in London should not be entirely abated ; and,
when that period shall come, what shall we have gained?
—The crisp, bright atmosphere of Paris, for the suicidal
pea-soup air of London, during a portion of the year
at least. Does our reader doubt it ? Has he never
experienced a perfect sensation, strolling home in the
small hours some spring morning, at beieg able to see
from the top to the bottom of Bond-street, and to dis-
tinguish the slightest detail of architecture at 100 yards'
distance t Every fine summer morning of our existence
this smoky, dirty town, is born afresh, bright and clear,
like Venus rising from the sea, only to descend upon the
wheel of night black and grim as Pluto himself.
Let us conquer this smoke nuisance, scare away this
nightmare of our own producing, and who shall say that
the richest capital in the world shall continue one of th•
ugliest ? It lies within our power to perpetuate through-
out the day to a certain extent the morning's pellucid
atmosphere by Act of Parliament and by private eco-
nomy as effectually as we are now purifying our water.
When we shall have done this, Decimus Burton will
no longer labour in vain, and we shall cease to
be guilty of the folly of introducing Greek or Italian
architecture, with a certainty of seeing all details in-
crusted and lost in a few years beneath a covering of
soot. Passing on the north side of St. Mary-le-Strand
Church the other day we perceived with astonishment
some exquisite carvings of cherubim, flowers, and fruit
over the heads of the windows, which bad just been din-
, interred by workmen from their grave of soot, where for
years they had been as completely hidden from human
view as the Nineveh marbles were by the sand-heaps of
Mossul.

If a still more glaring example were wanting of injury
done to our architecture by the fugitive fuel of our fires,
there stands S. Paul's. For generations the full tide of
London life has passed around it, without learning the les-
son it teaches. The picture-cleaner places a portrait in
his window, one-half restored to its original freshness,
the other half clogged with dirt. Wind and rain,
the cleaners of nature, have swept the south side of
the metropolitan cathedral in its upper half, and kept
the Portland stone as bright as it came from the
quarry, while the lower half, which is protected by
the surrounding houses, is coated with dismal carbon.
Nay, as if to teach the passer-by more distinctly the
evil smoke is doing it, we have one side of a pillar
white and the other black ; and St. Paul himself,
crowning the southern pediment, smiles benignly with
a pure and spotless right cheek and side, while the
drapery hanging over his left arm is thickly lined
with soot ! Never did any building cry out in a more
dramatic manner to be purified and protected from
pollution.

While the smoke nuisance continues, of course decora-
tions in colour of any semi-exposed building are absurd.
Mr. Sang's polyeuromie embellishments of the arcade of
the Royal Exchane are now reduced to a dull grey;
the cobalt ty:npai,urn of the British Museum is becoming
a good fog colour ; Cie pictures in the National Gallery
are deteriorating ; Owen Jones is in despair ; and all be
cause we will sod our coal up the chimneys at an aver-
age cost of:26s. a ton, in order that it may Distribute itself
broadcast upon ourselves, our goods, and our public
works of art !

HEALTH OF LONDON DURIZM THE

WEEK.

(From the Registrar-General's Return.)

In the week that ended last Saturday the deaths of
1,508 persons, namely 789 males and 719 females, were
registered in London. In the ten corresponding weeks
of the years 1844-53 the average number was 1,164, and
if this is raised in proportion to increase of population it
becomes 1,280. The present return shows an excess
above the corrected average, amounting to 228.
In the first three weeks of December the number re-
turned weekly was about 1,300. The increase in last
week's registration is not the effect of an increased rate of
mortality ; it arises for the most part, if not entirely,
from coroner's cases which occurred in former weeks,
and have been accumulating till the end of the quarter.
This irregularity is almost wholly confined to those
deaths which in the list of fatal causes are classified as
caused by "violence, privation, and intemperance."
Two hundred and eighty-two deaths are attributed
to diseases of the zymotic class, the corrected average
being 257. Amongst these small-pox was fatal in 33
cases, 8 of which occurred to persons beyond childhood ;
measles in 30 ; scarlatina in 82 ; hooping-cough in 41 ;
rind typhus and other fevers in 49 cases. In the class
of deaths produced by external eanses, and which con-
sists chiefly of cases on which inquests have been held,
3 deaths resulted from intemperance, 2 from privation,
8 from want of breast-milk, and 5 from exposure to
cold.

List week the births of 820 boys, and 819 girls, in all
1,(339 children, were registered in London.. In the nine
corresponding weeks' of the years 1345-53 the average
number was 1,293.

Daring the 52 weeks of the past year (1854) the total
deaths in London amounted to 73,697, so that the gene-
ral mortality of the year, which in this vast city is at
the rate of 25 in 1,000, ruse to the high rate of 29 in
1,000.

The deaths in 1849 were 68,432 ; yet upon taking the
increase of population into account, the rate of mortality
was rather lower in 1854, notwithstanding the increase
of deaths, than it was in 1849. The exact rate of mor-
tality was S.OOB per cent. on the population in 1849,
and 2.938 per cent. in 1854.
The epidemic of cholera in the two years separated
by an interval of five years thus raised the mortality
one-fifth part above the average.
A table is published with the new return on the in •
fluence of density of population. The population of Lon-
don is very unequally distributed over 78,029 acres of
ground ; in several of the outlying club-districts the inha-
tants are in the proportion of 1,2, 3,4, 5,6, 10 on an
acre, in other sub-districts the population becomes so
crowded that there are 200, 250, 300, 400, and in one
sub-district 432 persons lodged on every acre of ground.
This table shows that there is no direct connexion be-
tween these different degrees of density and the fatality
of cholera. The epidemic was not generally more fatal
in the sub districts havii,g less than 100 persons to an
acre than it was in the dense districts having 200 per-
sons and upwards to an acre.

MORTALITY IN THE METROPOLIS.
NUMBER OF DEATTIS FROM ALL CAUSES REGISTERED
IN TIIE WEEK ENDING SATURDAY, DEC. 30.
Zymotic Diseases
Diseases of Un.;ertain Seat
Tubercular Diseases
Diseases of the Drain, Nerves and Senses
Diseases of the Heart and Blood-vessels 53
Diseases of the Lungs and other Organs of
• Respiration. .. . 268
Diseases of the Stomach, Liver, and other Organs
of Digestion
Diseases of the Kidneys, &c.
Childbirth, Diseases of the Uterus, &c.
Diseases of the Joints, Bores, and Muscles
Diseases of the Skin, &c.
Malformations 3
Premature Birth and Debility 3l
Atrophy 42
Old Age
Sudden 6l
Violence, Privation, Cold, and Intemperance 175
Causes not specified

DEATHS PROM ALL CAUSES 1,508
Population Deaths in cone- Deaths
Enumerated. sponding week in the

. -
1551. of 1853. Week.
West Districts
North Districts 490,396
Central Districts 393,256
East Districts 485,522
South Districts

Totals