p>Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 712 / August 18, 1877
AIR AND WATER POLLUTION
We have been lately staying at a pleasant sea-side resort. The stretch of sands on the beach is beautiful, the houses generally well built and commodious, the accommodation for strangers excellent. With much to commend, one thing struck us as very anomalous. There are several factories, including one or two bottle-works, and from these are almost constantly sent forth huge volumes of dense black smoke, which according to the direction of the wind, pour across the otherwise fair scene, and tend greatly to pollute the atmosphere. Now, this we presume to think is a serious encroachment on public rights. Nature beneficently provides a pure atmosphere, which all may enjoy, and that will be favourable to vegetable growth. Despising this primary principle, and acting only from sheer selfishness, certain individuals, ordinarily known as capitalists, set up factories with tall brick chimneys, from which are vomited those hideously dark masses of coal-smoke, in defiance of good taste, decency, and common-sense. We had almost said in defiance of honesty, because the air of heaven is a universal inheritance, and the pollution of it for selfish ends is, morally speaking, little better than picking a pocket. Yet, how much of this aggressive dishonesty is habitually practised! The air of towns and villages is polluted. Some of the most beautiful rural scenes are polluted. Over charming dells, clothed in natural shrubbery and flowers, to which one would like to flee and be at rest, is seen hovering a pall of black smoke, projected from some sort of factory or a paper-mill, and doing its best to transform beauty into ugliness. Surely, to speak mildly, that is a public wrong.
Travelling through England, and entering what are termed the manufacturing districts, we come upon the Smoke Demon in full blast. Who, for example, can forget the revolting aspect presented by Sheffield or Wigan? The sky hidden by dark smoke, the houses begrimed, and the land blighted, as if saturated with coal-culm. Obviously, there is a prevailing sootiness; and speculating as to how people can possibly live amidst such horrors, we think with a feeling of relief of the joy they possibly experience when on Sunday the chimneys cease to smoke, the blue firmament is suffered to be unveiled, and children are able to fill their lungs with air comparatively free from impurity. Even in the neighbourhood of towns not absolutely of the manufacturing class, the tourist is pained to observe what atmospheric deteriorations are caused by smoke. In few places nowadays are there not tokens of industry involving the application of steam-power. Tall chimneys are apt to start up where least expected, with the usual results. These brick chimneys are not usually an embellishment to the landscape; but we raise no objection to them on this ground. Required for purposes of manufacture, and valuable in connection with the employment of large numbers of persons, they may be viewed as indispensable adjuncts in promoting commercial prosperity, and increasing the national wealth. Accordingly, it is not the chimney-stalks we find fault with; it is the vast masses of smoke that needlessly issues from them, which at a very small expense and a slight degree of care, could be effectually prevented. For want of this reasonable amount of care, the green fields in the vicinity of the chimneys cease to be green. The soot falling on the pasturage, defiles the herbage; and the poor sheep and lambs, born to experience the vicissitudes of weather, but at least to wear clean wool upon their backs, are as dingy as professional chimney-sweeps. Unmistakably, they have been besmirched by the Smoke Demon, who in his iniquitous visitations respects neither man nor beast, and is apparently indifferent to what becomes of the whole animal and vegetable creation. Perish the comfort of everybody; let smoke in any measure of density have its sway! That is the doctrine of greed predominant in this wonderfully advanced nineteenth century, which some people are never done eulogising.
We see a curious instance of the Smoke Demon's proceedings in a reputedly fashionable part of a large city. A piece of land had just been laid out in the building of mansions of a superior class – not one of them valued at less than seven or eight thousand pounds – when lo and behold the purchasers of the newly erected edifices find to their consternation that the tall chimney of an unexpected factory has begun to belch volumes of black smoke into their back-windows all day long! The chimney – that of a perfectly respectable flour-mill, we believe – is unexceptionable as regards chimney architecture. It is tall and handsomely tapered; but what signifies these commendable qualities? There, from morning to night, goes its smoke, polluting the atmosphere in the bedrooms, killing the flowers in the conservatories, odious and sickening in all directions. Very hard this on the purchasers of these splendid mansions. They have got unexceptionably good houses, but with what an atmospheric drawback!
Why, however, should municipal authorities tolerate such abominations? Yes, why should they? There exist in many places police edicts designed to quench the Smoke Demon. Through the vigilance of the authorities, the smoke nuisance in London has been immensely modified within our recollection. In some large provincial towns it has likewise been materially abated. But taking the country at large, it is about as bad as ever. The evil has little chance of being thoroughly mastered by any local magistracy. The very authorities who should stamp out the abomination are likely enough to be the evil-doers themselves, or are at least so compromised by surrounding influences as purposely in this particular to neglect the interests of the community. Besides, to put existing and not very distinct laws in motion, a heavy expense is liable to be incurred. And local authorities of all kinds do not like to encounter litigation unless strongly urged by public clamour and backed by persons of note, who do not mind to take trouble and share part of the cost. We apprehend that no effectual remedy is obtainable in present circumstances.
The true corrective would be to assign the conservancy of the atmosphere and of rivers to officers directly appointed by and responsible to the crown. To this opinion has come Dr Richardson, one of the most eminent promulgators of the laws of health. In a recent lecture on the subject at the Royal Institution, he says very pointedly: 'In the future of sanitary science, the politician must come forward more resolutely than he has done, in order to secure for those he governs three requisites – pure water, pure food, and pure air. It is utterly hopeless to trust to companies in a matter of such vital importance as the supply of water. It is equally hopeless to trust to the undirected action of local authorities.' Proceeding to state that a remedy can be found only in the official action of a supreme authority, he says: 'As to pure air, there is no practical legislation of any kind. The air of our large towns is charged with smoke and impurity. The air of our great factories is charged with dusts which destroy life with the precision of a deadly aim. Dr Purdon, one of the certifying surgeons under the Factory Acts, reports that in flax-working factories under his care, the carders, who are all females, if they get a carding-machine at sixteen years, generally die at thirty years. Could anything be more terrible than such a fact, that a girl of sixteen should have to live by an occupation that will bring her existence to an end in fourteen years, and to that end with all the prolonged wasting, sleeplessness, suffering, incident to the disease consumption of the lungs? If it were the fate of these doomed workers that at the close of fourteen years' work the majority of them were taken forth and shot dead in an instant, their fate were infinitely better than it is. The heart of the nation would thus be aroused, and the law in all its majesty would be put in operation to arrest the progress of the crime and to punish the offenders. Yet, year after year as terrible an offence goes on, and because the result of it is hidden in the sick-room, there is no arrest of its progress, no punishment for its commission.'
In the same lecture, Dr Richardson speaks with equal vehemence on the too prevalent practice of polluting rivers and wells by the influx of sewage from large towns and various kinds of public works, dye-works in particular. Here, again, the action of local authorities is generally hopeless. Magistrates and town councils will complacently see a river flowing past them loaded with impurities. 'The government,' he says, 'must either produce a process or processes for pure water supply, and insist on every local authority carrying out the proper method; or it must – and this would be far better – take the whole matter into its own hands, so that under its supreme direction every living centre should, without fail, receive the first necessity of healthy life in the condition fitted for the necessities of all who live. By recent legislation we had some security for obtaining fresh animal food, and foods freed of foreign substances or adulterations. The penalties that might be inflicted on those who sell decomposing, diseased, or adulterated foods were beginning to have effect, and much good was resulting.' Similar regulations ought to be applied to water. The fouling of rivers by sewage must be