, 1881-04-20

gaze DIT Tue mlUOay sun. 30 Une sun, Ill
this case, has to be made to do all the
work possible and show itself as little as
possible. lsA ff.3
London, along it's main thoroughfares, will
discard gas for the electric light within
the present century. The really cautious
and hesitating progress of the invention
must remind not a few of the equally
cautious and hesitating progress of gas.
1t was tried as a costly experiment In
Piccadilly and Pall-mall about the begin
ming OF the Regency and the experiment
was slowly spreading from district to dis
trict, from mill to mill, from city to city,
till 1920. Up to that date the works were
all small and experimental. Westminster
Gasworks were built some years after, and
were thought About 1925 the
second rate towns were building their gas
works. Even then the instant you were
off the fagstones, then seldom seen except
before good houses and good shops, you
saw nothing but dim oil lamps, like glow
worms in the darkness, guiding you, but
throwing no light on the path, much as it
needed it. AS there were then no rail
ways, the towns that lay far from coal pits
or canals had still to be content with oil,
an " defiant OIL" as they called an article
which at one time was expected to drive
even gas out of the field. Gas appeared
in shop after shop, slowly, just as we now
hear of the electric light being adopted by
enterprising employers, ready to try
experiments, and not very careful to count
the cost of them if q step seemed to have
been gained. Gas in shops quickened the
introduction of larger plates of glass, for
in the year 1920 there was hardly a pane
e z11o1 - TnvIo1N lnnnac thoT q NJ 70 nf
this journal. if so large. For indoor
lighting, and for all indoor purposes, gas
was long before it came into favour, or out
of suspicion. Whether to the eyes or the
nose it bore no comparison with wax
When the father of the late Lord Belper
invited a large party to a dinner cooked
with gas, the unlimited majority OF the
town were delighted to hear that the cook
ing range had exploded and that the din
ner was spoilt. In the northern parts gas
had long to encounter the jealousy OF
those interested in whale oil, and it was
there hard to find any one who had saved
a little money and had not a share i'll a
Whaler. 1t was the nursery of the British
m as has often been said since of
the sailing GOLFERS. It seems now quite
within the bounds of probability that
a time will come, a generation hence, when
gas will have had it's day and run it's
course. In that case the world will won.
der how we ever came to introduce into
the soil of our streets, and the inside of
our houses, a subtle and unmanageable
agent, deleterious, dangerous, and
nauseous, the last happily, as it thereby
reveals itself in time to prevent worse
consequences. if we choose to take the
warning. For all purposes of illumination
gas is so vast In Improvement on oil that
the world has given, perhaps, not quite
enough thought to its injurious effect ON
health, and specially on thec yesight. 1t
is impossible not to read the results in the
cheess of all who work by il. There is q
fascination in brilliancy which makes even
sensible people blind to the question OF
health. They are like moths, content to
die in q fame, But sven for purposes of
illumination gas has its faults, perhaps
not without remedy. The gas lishts in
our streets are put at the same height as
the old oil lamps. These were put as low
down as was compatible with safety, for
they were not likely to dazzle the most
purblind passenger. But gas light is found
very dazzling and oyerpowering by those
whose ewes have lost by age much OF their
retroactive power. No situation can be
more p~erilous than that OF an elderly man
halfway through a long oblique crossing
at the junction of several streets, Win q
iaring gas light right before him, meant
to be his beacon, but, ID TACT, pnndlng
him altogether.
We cannot be surprised, nor ought we
- 1n Aicanrr0on6 Wh4n