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sound absorbing coverings for walls and ceilings, special cork flooring on floors
where there was likely to be much traffic, vacuum cleaning plant, etc. Such
indications that the advantages of health promoting systems are being appreciated
in commerce and industry and are happily increasing.
Glass Permeable to Ultra-Violet Radiation.
The use of such glass for windows in schools, work buildings and homes cannot
but be regarded as highly desirable from a health point of view. This glass transmits
the biological and therapeutic wave lengths of the ultra-violet rays and its
general use, particularly in towns, would confer a benefit on school children at
their lessons, workers in offices and shops, sick people confined to bed and residents
generally in the crowded houses of our mean streets.
Smoke Abatevient.
The smoke shafts in the Borough were frequently kept under observation and
in 432 cases the inspections were recorded. Some of these observations were made in
the early morning when smoke pollution is more prevalent. Generally the observations
extended over periods of not less than one hour. No complaint was received. As the
result of the inspections five intimation notices were served.
Much of the black smoke nuisance arises from careless or inefficient stoking. Stoking
is usuallv considered an unskilled employment and the stoker commonly receives but little
instruction how to carry out his work.
In order to ascertain to what extent facilities exist in London for the training of stokers
and firemen, communications were addressed to the Education Authority (L.C.C.), Polytechnics,
and organisations connected with mechanical engineering, asking if any classes
for stokers were provided by them. From replies received it would appear that very few,
if any, such classes have been organised. The Northampton Polytechnic Institute, St. John
Street, E.C. 1, have provided a fuels department, although they have not actually held
classes for stokers. This institute would be prepared to consider the organisation of such
classes to be held in the evening or would undertake day instruction. The Education Officer
of the London County Council replied that the question of providing such classes would be
carefully considered if the number of students for training, the type of work with which
stokers and firemen are connected, and the district in which the classes would be required,
could be furnished. Other replies also indicate the willingness of the teaching bodies to
organise special classes for stokers and firemen if they could be assured that the number of
students likely to attend would be sufficient to justify the venture.
It might seem desirable that the controllers of large works, and even of smaller businesses
where these workers are employed, should encourage their stokers and firemen to apply
to the London County Council Technical Institutes or local Polytechnics for a course of
training to qualify them for their work.
In the meantime, with a view to encouraging careful and efficient stoking, poster cards
giving practical instruction suitable for hanging in boiler rooms, have been obtained during
the past few years, and a number of employers exhibit them in their boiler rooms.
Smokeless Fuel.
The Public Health (Smoke Abatement) Act, 1926, although an advance on previous
legislation for dealing with the smoke nuisance, is by itself inadequate to deal with the
serious consequences to public health of atmospheric pollution, inasmuch as it deals solely
with the emission of industrial smoke, whereas it is often the domestic fires which cause the
trouble. In London on an average 37,000 tons of coal are burnt daily in domestic fires,
contributing largely to the pall of smoke over the Metropolis.