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222
GAS.
The subjoined tables, based on the quarterly reports of the
Chief Gas Examiner, summarise the principal results (averages)
of the daily testings at the Ladbroke Grove Station of the ''common
gas," manufactured by the Gas Light and Coke Company at
their Kensal Green Works.

It will thus be seen that the minimum illuminating power of
the gas was better than the requirements of the Acts of Parliament.
But it is stated, in the Annual Keport of the Metropolitan
Board of Works, as the result of testings with a portable photometer,
that there are parts of London, the inhabitants of which
do not always get their gas of the quality which it was thought
had been secured to them by Act of Parliament; the gas having
been frequently found to be inferior in lighting power to the prescribed
standard, sometimes by as much as one candle. There is
no way of preventing this, the Companies in default being subject
to no forfeiture or penalty as they are when the gas is shewn to
be defective at the regular testing places. The above facts point
to the necessity for an alteration of the law. The gas referees
approve of the testing of gas by means of a portable photometer,
and the Metropolitan Board of Works have advised the Board of
Trade that statutory power should be obtained for that mode of
testing, so that gas companies may be liable to forfeitures for gas
which the portable photometer shewed to be defective in lighting
power. The Metropolitan Board have also suggested the