The Sun.
London, England, 1849-06-11 00:00:00

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LONDON, MONDAY, JUNE n, 1849.

The attention of manufacturers and others, whose
business renders necessary the use of furnaces for
the heating of stationary steam-engine boilers, should
be directed while there is yet time to the vexations
provisions of the " Smoke Prohibition Bill," which,
after being brought down from the House. of Lords,
was read a second time in the Commons ornlVednes-
day last. They little know the annoyances and ex-
penses to which they will be subjected if the measure
should unfortunately pass into law in its present
form. No adequate reason can Le assigned for the
passing of this mischievous interference with the busi-
ness of a lare'e and influential body ofpersons, whoafford
more constant; employment to the labouring classes,
than any others of equal number in the entire com-
munity. It cannot be shown that the opaque smoke,
which is "not to be permitted to issue from the
chimney of any furnace for any longer time than is
bona fide necessary for the kindling of the fire of such
furnace," is in any degree injurious to the public
health. If such were the case effectual means could
be adopted, under the existing laws, to abate the nui-
sance and to prevent any pollution of the atmosphere
by which its salubrity could be injuriously affected.
The Act is therefore unnecessary and uncalled for,
on the, only grounds that could possibly justify
such a inn... It is, as the Honourable Member for
Manchester happily termed it—a portion of that
" sentimental leeislation," by the introduction of
which certain Honourable Gentlemen fancy that
they are rendering themselves conspicuous, and ob-
taining for themselves the reputation of being " active
legis!ators." We might be contented merely to smile
at such enactments, and to suffer these would-be
st t .amen to indulge their v 6 hims, if these fancies were
harmless in themselves, and did not wan-
tonly interfere with the business of others
of the details and management of which the law-.
makers are totally ignorant. Unfortunately, how-
ever, the gratification of their vanities may entail
very serious losses and much vexatious litigation on
their neighbours. It ray be very good fun to Hon.
Gentlemen wholly unconnected with manufactures of
any description, but it wi!l be regarded in a very
different aspect by those who are summoned before
two of the great unpaid, and fined a turn not exceeding
51. with costs, and perhaps in default of payment corn-
mited for, three calendar rncnth3 to the common gaol,
or house of correction. Such persons will be placed
at the mercy of informers, who will readily avail

themselves of the opportunies afforded either of gra-
tifying malice or endeavouring, to extort money
under the threat of prosecution ; and it should not be
forgotten that the complainant himself is rendered a
competent witness, and that his unsupported oath or
affirmation will be sufficient to warrant a conviction.
Practically the effect of the Act will be to place
many manufacturers at the mercy of such parties, who
must be either bribed to remain quiescent, or, if the
complaint should be preferred, the business must be
suspended, at any degree of inconvenience, while ex-
periments are making to ascertain if it be really prac-
ticable to prevent the issuing of " opaque smoke" at
all times and under all circumstances from their
chimneys. And they may, in fact, be compelled to
abandon manufactures in which they have embarked
large capitals, because they are directed by law to
do that which is actually impossible, and which no
care or exertions on their part can achieve. It should
not be forgotten that it is only certain favoured classes,
viz., those connected with the manufacture of iron and
copper, and with coal works or distilleries, that are
permitted to set up as a defence "that the entire
consumption of the opaque smoke is impossible, either
from the nature of the coal used in the furnace, or
from some practice necessarily connected with his
manufacture." None others, however anxiously they
may have tried to consume their smoke, or however
great the expenditure they may have incurred in
adopting the best recognised mode of so doing, can be
acquitted before the justices. The oath or affirmation of
the informer, that he has seen opaque smoke issuing from
the furnace for a longer period of time than is bona fide
necessary for the kindling of the fire, must insure a
conviction, however strong the evidence adduced by
the defendant, to show that he is wholly free from
blame in the transaction ; and, as there is no limita-
tion of the number of offences that may be committed
within a stipulated time, the occupier of a factory may
incur a separate penalty of 51. and costs for every
single puff of " opaque smoke" that issues from
his chimney. The provisions of the Bill
are as loose and vague as any of those
specimens of amateur legislation that have been so
justly complained of by those whose duty it was to
interpret and reconcile the contradictory enactments.
Although the object to be attained were as desirable
as it is really unnecessary and mischievous, the
Bill should not, for the credit of the Imperial Parlia-
ment, be permitted to pass in its present form. As
is very generally the case, the interpretation clause is
probably the most obscure and doubtful in the en-
tire measure. It is, according to the usual practice
where it is intended to cover clumsy and inartificial
legislation, provided that the singular number in-
cludes the plural, and that masculine means feminine.
" Opaque smoke," we are told, "shall mean smoke
not transparent at the point of its exit from a
chimney," which perhaps may give rise to as many
arguments as to its real meaning as if no attempt at
explanation had been given. It is, we suppose, a
reliance on the efficacy of the clause that makes
singular include plural, that induced the framers of
the statute to provide (in the 4th section)—
" That upon complaint made to any justice of the
peace of any offence having been committed against the
Act, within the jurisdiction of such justice, such justice
shall summon the person against whom such complaint
shall be made to answer the said complaint, and if such
person shall not appear according to the tenor of such
summons, and no soilLient cause shall be shown for the
nun-appearance of such person, the justice before whom
stnli person shall have been summoned to appear shall
and may, upon proof of the service or such summons,
hear end determine the said complaint in the absence of
such person."
Here, then, according to the plain meaning of the
clause, the only person entitled to hear and determine
the complaint in the absence of the party summoned
is the justice before whom such person had been sum-
moned, but by section 11 it is provided, that all
penalties should be recovered before any two or more
jucticea, &c. If then a party does not appear, one
justice only can adjudicate, but the penalties can only
be recovered before two or more justices, and, there-
fore, no penalty can be imposed it' the party sum-
moned does not choose to attend, which of course he
will not do.

Many conflicting decisions will doubtless take
place as to the time which may be bond fide necessary
for kindling a fire. What one justice may consider
ample time for the purpose another may deem in-
sufficient ; there can therefore be no certainty as to
the result. But the Bth section is perhaps the
strangest of all. It declares " that the party com-
plained of shall be required to show that the issuing
of such smoke did not constitute an offence against
the Act, and that his furnace is constructed on
some approved plan for the consumption of the
smoke issuing from the same." Here then, if guilty
of no offence, he may be required to show that his
furnace is constructed on some approved plan for the
consumption of smoke ; but, even if so, it will not
afford a sufficient defence, as he must also show that
the issuing of such smoke did not constitute an
offence against the Act, which by the 3d section it is
expressly declared to be.
We might adduce many other similar "absurdities,
but enough has been stated to induce the parties so
deeply interested in the matter to offer such an oppo-
sition to the Bill as will ensure its rejection in one of
the subsequent stages, and make it terminate as it
began, "in smoke."

Common prudence should tell us that, however
distasteful the particulars may be in themselves, we
should observe with vigilant eyes the detailed intelli-
gence received of the ravages made in Paris by the
Asiatic cholera. Every day the accounts from the
French capital of the progress made by the disease
become more and more alarming. To shut our ears
to the fact would be an absurdity ; to suppress the
daily returns of the victims to the malady through a
notion that the publication of those returns might
seem to indicate a disposition to exaggerate,
or a solicitude to increase the anxiety of
the population, would be the height of
foolishness. C071221107d sense, as well as common
prudence, must assure every rational man that the
wisest as well as the safest course to be adopted on
all such occasions is to regard matters exactly as
they are, not as we should wish them to he.
Latterly there has been no means of blinking the
truth as to the appearance of the cholera among
the Parisians, and the rapid ascension in the
number of its victims. Persons of too great
celebrity to be overlooked have been carried
off among the obscure ranks of the departed.
And so evident at last became the fact that the
cholera was decimating the metropolis of the French
Republic, that every death or indisposition announced
was at once attributed to the dreaded scourge. When
M. LEDSU ltommi was seized with sickness only the
other morning, the attack was instantly declared to
arise from cholera, although the real nature of the
illness of the leader of Ile Ultra-Democrats partook
rather of the character of erysipelas. When shortly
before, the Countess of 13,EssmoTozr, celebrated Is
much, for her beauty as for her intellect, was sud-
denly snatched from those fair fields of literature
which had, only a few weeks before, been darkened
by the demise of Miss EDGEWOETII, her decease was
forthwith pronounced to he cholera, notwithstanding
the physicians declared the seizure to have been apo-
plectic. Since then, however, the public alarm has
been more than justified by the ravages made by the
Asiatic cholera among the ranks of all classes of the
Parisians.
Desolated, in the June of 1818, by the terrible
battle in the streets between the lovers of order and
the lovers of terrorism—beautiful, unfortunate Paris
is now being desolatsd, in the June of 1,349, by an
equally formidable and more victor*. iloss4ilant. For
the scores that fell before the musket h_ of rebellion,
hundreds are perishing under the poilential breath
'of disease. To-day we have to announce the death,
by cholera, of the most renowned soldier of the present
generation of Frenchmen. It will be no small regret
to every well-wisher of France that at this moment
of political emergency, when war becomes, gradually
and gradually, proximate, as the substitute for diplo-
macy, that at this critical interval, when the
man of action is becoming every day more necessary
to French Republicanism—Marshal BUGEAUD has
been abruptly snatched from the busy arena of life,
leaving a place vacant which not one single indivi-
dual amongst all his contemporaries can presume to
occupy. With distinguished soldiers like CHAN-
GARNIER, like LAMOILICIERE, like CAVAIGNAC,
like BEnEau, like OUDINOT, France might
possibly have witnessed the funeral obsequies of
the victor of Isly with moderated feelings
of regret had the conqueror of Algeria reckoned ,