only wear; coal-dust and perspiration so mingled
as to give their bodies the shiny gloss seen
on the hides of black porkers when basking
in the sun; here they are, working with a will
at what must surely be one of the most irksome
and monotonous of the many irksome and
monotonous forms of labour in this laborious world.
A huge iron scoop, like a Brobdingnagian
marrow-spoon, which is filled and emptied, emptied
and filled, throughout the twenty-four hours; a
long row of fiery furnaces, into which the scoop
fits closely, and into which its contents are
dexterously turned, when it is rapidly
withdrawn, and the process repeated a few feet
further on. Such is the work. A long row of
ovens in a monster black bakery, each of which
belches forth flame and stench when its door is
opened, and in which blazing coals are the only
condiment. An atmosphere hot, sulphureous,
deadly; coals, ready for baking everywhere,
crunching under foot, piled in profuse heaps
against the walls, and settling on our clothes
in particles of fine black dust. Outside the
ovens these coals are arriving in grimy barges
from Sunderland and Newcastle, an armlet of
the Regent's Canal bringing them to the
warehouse doors, after which they are methodically
stowed away, to be speedily served out again for
the retorts or ovens we are scorching before now.
There must be something in coal-dust which gives
a peculiarly natural blackness to the skin. The
genteel and erudite hermit of Stevenage, who is
known to fame for sleeping on cinders and
declining to wash himself, has, I remember, just
suich a complexion as the Men of Fire; and his
ingrained duskiness might be that of an African
savage, so unartificial does it seem.

Here, however, as five o'clock strikes, the
coloured men dip their heads and bodies into huge
tubs of soapsuds and warm water, and emerge
piebald. Face and chest are clean, but a portion
of the body remains untouched, and a ridiculous
effect is produced in the dim light by the long
vista of white backs, each with a large patch in
its centre, uniform in size and shape, like a row
of black maps of Australia on a series of fresh-
coloured seas. Then come neighbourly
scrubbings, and finally the Men of Fire bid their
mates good night, and go forth to their homes
or their pleasures, rosy, radiant, and decently
attired. At five in the morning they will be on
duty again, and their rests during the past
twelve hours have been from seven to eight, and
from twelve to one.

After the first shock of novelty has worn off, and
the feeling of having been suddenly thrust into
pandemonium has subsided, we see that the Men
of Fire work in gangs of five. Each retort
consumes about a ton of coals in twenty-four hours,
and each gang of workers disposes of from ninety
to one hundred tons every twelve hours. Two men
are on each side the scoop, filling it with might
and main, while a fifth, who is the ganger, guides
it into its oven resting-place, and then pushes it
home. The others assist in this process, but the
responsibility of guidance rests with the ganger,
who has to face the flame and smoke more closely
than the rest, and who receives an extra wage
in consequence. This simple but laborious act
is repeated until the retorts are all filled; and
again at other times it is reversed until they are
emptied in their turn. "Charge 'ere burnt out
since 12.30," calls one fire-feeder to his men,
while the frequent talk of "naked bricks" seems
to uninitiated ears to refer to jovially eccentric
members of the human race. Passing a retort
"waiting" like a cork "to be drawn," we leave
the first black chamber with a sense of relief
such as a mouse must feel when rescued from
scientific experimentalising under an air-pump;
cross yards, and pass strange queer monsters
stuck at odd angles about the place, and looking
like Egyptian idols or the ugly treasures of some
Indian joss-house. Condensers, purifiers, engine-
houses, gasometers these, all on a vast scale, all
on constant duty, that our city may be supplied
with light. It is unusually dark to-night; and
as these monsters stand out with what seems
mysterious stillness against the murky sky,
doors distant and near open and close
continually, and reveal more furnaces set in deepest
black, and more swarthy naked fire-workers
flitting to and fro. Dante in literature, and
Rembrandt and Salvator Rosa in art, are brought
before us at every turn. There is something
impressive, too, in mere size, and it needs no
great, stretch of fancy to see in the impassive
condensers misshapen polypi, or phlegmatic
giants on guard.

This large dry tank is full of oxide of iron,
and the metal cap, of the proportions of a
good-sized dining-room, now suspended over
it, fits tightly into its surrounding grooves,
and will be dropped down when the tank has
received its appointed quantity of material.
This is the last purifying process, and removes
the remaining sulphuretted hydrogen. The
most effective purifier of all is lime, playfully
termed "Blue Billy," but its foul smell
makes its use almost impracticable in London.
From the retorts we have just seen, and from
which the gas comes raw and crude from the
coal, it passes to the condensers, which are so
arranged that the action of drawing also propels
it to the scrubbers. These are filled with coke,
and divide the tarry matter from the gas. The
white lime purifiers are the next stage after the
scrubbers, and take away sulphuretted hydrogen,
ammonia, and carbonic acid. Sawdust,
saturated with sulphuric acid, and reminding us
strongly of cheap and nasty smelling-salts, and
finally the oxide of iron tank, are passed through,
by which time the gas has attained its prescribed
standard of purity, and, after tests and counter-
tests, is served to the London public at so much
a thousand feet.

"Grave misapprehension," my guide
courteously whispers, "respecting gas companies,
exists in the public mind; and in nothing more
strongly than the prices we charge, and the
profits we make. Monopoly you say? Granted;
but the remedy for the evils of monopoly is
surely free trade, and not the handing over
existing interests to a public board. However,
we are perfectly ready either to be transferred,
or to enter the lists of open competition if the