New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1875-07-10
CJTy SCENTS.
learns.


eqllaled Capt. Lahrbush in longevity, as he
certainly could in the use of opium, he might
help us to a comparison between the smells of
New-York and Cologne. 70 do the subject
under present consideration justice, some one
is needed with fine nose of discrimination,
like that of the poet who counted the separate
stenches of the city of the Rhine. Science
has added greatly since his day to the worlds
resources in the manufacture of bad smells.
The late DR.. TOney, less distinguished
in chemistry than in botany, though of high
honor in both, used to tell an amusing ancc-
dote of a social gathering of men of science
shortly after the discovery of kakOdyle. This
substance or gas was, if we recOllect rightly,
a compound of arsenic, hydrogen, and sulphur.
1t has been renamed by modern nomenclature,
being one of those things that smell quite as
sweet by any other name. Nothing would
suit the chemists of the party after dinner
but to adjourn to laboratory and try the ex-
pertinent of making this new substance. There
was some leakage in the apparatus, and con-
scqucntly, then and there, every member of
the party lost his dinner. But that was many
years ago, before the arts of bone-bOiling and
making kerosene were discovered. Should
party of chemists at the present day be seized
with like curiosity, they could have the next
thing to kakOdyle without the trouble of
making it. A ferry boat would take them
readily to the windward side of Hunters
Point, or they could stretch their legs in
post -prandial walk on the North River side
above FOrtieth-st. If these experiments did
not suffice, a tour around the edge of Harlem
Flats would certainly satisfy their utmost
warnings.
NEWCOMERS may be wanting in some of
the virtues but patence-Of a certain SORTS
not among the number. For score of years
the chimney of the Assay Office, between Wall
and Pine-sts., used to contribute at frequent
intervals plume of cOpper-cOlOred smoke to
the atmosphere. If the wind happened to
blow this vapor downward into tho neigh
boring streets, there was straightway the
most vigorous coughing on the side
walks. Everybody coughed-bankers, bro
kers. clerks, even the apple women
coughed till the tears came, coughcd till
pharynx and larynx and CLOTHS and epiglottis
were raw. Then they took trOches and va
rious other lubricants for their throats and
went about their business just as if nothing
had happened Not until twenty years of such
experience had passed did anybody think it
worth while to suggest to the United States
authorities that nitrous acid is not as pleasant
az nitrous oxide for inhalation and not until
within few months. if at all, has the nuisance
been abated. Whether we are actually rid
of the odors from the gas-hOuscs is still an
open question among citizens. The gas COM
panes declare that they 10 longer use the dry
lime process in purifying, but nobody ever told
the hatchet story Of any of their officers.
There is still that old familiar scent at times
in the ambient air near the gas works at
Wlliamsburgh, if not in this city. That was
a beautiful chemical experiment. that dry lime
process, by which the viler impurities of street
gas were caught up during the manu-
facture and safely stored away till after mid
night. Then the lime-troughs were opened and
a =. the detestable gaseous filth ilOatcd as out
of PandOra's box into the night air: foated
into open windows a mile away, half choking
slumbering citizens, who slept through it to
rise with headache, or awOke and searched
their houses from roof to cellar to find where
their own gas pipes were leaking. For, strange
to say, the best street gas that the companies
furnish has so much of sulphurous filth yet
remaining in it. that the average citizen per-
ceives no difference between its smell when
an unlighted burner is turned Oh, and the
sitting impurities themselves.
Whenever the bone-boling and slaughter
house establishments arc attacked, there seems
always to be an abundance of witnesses who
cannot smell anything bad about them. 1t
is scarcely fair, however, to put citizens who
can smell AT the mercy of those who cannot.
Even at Hunters Point there were found
people who thought favoraby Of sludgc OIL