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With regard to Ammonia, a valuable residual product of
gas manufacture, the limit allowed by the Acts of Parliament,
(4 grains in 100 cubic feet of gas), was not reached on any
occasion.
The Chief Gas Examiner is quite independent of the Company
; it is satisfactory, therefore, to note that his reports of
the testings are so favorable. No complaint was received
from any private consumer in respect of the illuminating
power of the gas, and I understand that Mr. Philip Monson,
your Vestry's Superintendent of Street Lighting, is satisfied
with the quality of the gas as supplied to the public lamps.
The burners now in use are calculated to consume gas at the
rate of 4.5 cubic feet per hour, whereas the burners formerly
in use, originally provided when Cannel gas was employed,
consumed only 3 feet per hour; but notwithstanding the
increased consumption of gas, (50 per cent.), and the consequent
improvement in the lighting of the public thoroughfares,
the cost is not greater than under the old system of a fixed
annual payment per lamp. Great complaints, however, are
made by private consumers, who allege, and justly, I believe,
that however much the price of gas may go down, (the shareholders
profits going up pari passu), the actual annual payment
for gas increases. The reason, doubtless, is that proper
apparatus for controlling the consumption of gas is not applied
either at the meter or in connexion with the individual