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76
OFFENSIVE OR INJURIOUS TRADES.
have so long managed to diffuse our caloric and
waste our coal in the directions where they least
conduce to the purposes of comfort and utility.
But, while the arrangements of private establishments
may, perhaps wisely, be left to the operation
of this spontaneous reform, I would venture to recommend
in regard of furnaces, employed for steamengines
and otherwise for manufactures within the
City, that you should endeavour to control the nuisance
of smoke.
The members of your Honourable Court are probably
cognizant of the great mass of evidence on
this subject, collected by two separate committees
of the House of Commons, and of the almost unanimous
conclusions to which that evidence led: "that
opaque smoke issuing from steam-engine chimneys
may be so abated, as no longer to be a public
nuisance; that a variety of means are found to exist
for the accomplishment of this object, simple in construction,
moderate in expense, and applicable to
existing furnaces and flues of stationary steamengines;
that a sufficient body of evidence has been
adduced, founded upon the experience of practical
men, to induce the opinion that a law, making it
imperative upon the owners of stationary steamengines,
to abate the issue of opaque smoke is desirable
for the benefit of the community*;" "that the
expense attendant on putting up whatever apparatus
may be required to prevent smoke arising from fur*Report,
Committee, 1845.