enactments they have expended a capital of between
six and seven millions sterling, and though the
Board of Works recently proposed with great
coolness to confiscate a great portion of this
amount, all calculation for a transfer must be
necessarily based upon it. I'm quite willing to
admit that some arbitration between the
companies as dealers and the public as consumers
might be advantageous to the latter; and we've
expressed our willingness to abide by the decision
of any scientific commission appointed for this
purpose. Meantime, while the recent reduction
in the price of gas of sixpence per thousand
feet has brought the dividend of one of
the largest companies down from ten to eight
and a half per cent, don't let every wild story
of our enormities, told by those directly
interested in bringing about a change, be received
with unquestioning faith.

"The coal you see around you is Newcastle
mixed with Cannel, and you'll easily distinguish
the latter by its flakyy shininess and by its
breaking into smooth slab-like pieces. The
metropolitan companies consume nearly a million
and a quarter of tons of coal a year, of which
one hundred and fifty thousand tons are Cannel.
Among the ingenious propositions made by the
wiseacres who wish to teach us our own business,
is one that the legal standard of illuminating
power shall be so raised that Cannel coal
only must be used. To do this, nine hundred
thousand tons of Cannel would be required
yearly while Wigan only yields six hundred and
fifty thousand tons a year in all; and as Mr.
Heron, the town clerk of Manchester, told the
parliamentary committee last year, the standard
of illuminating power has just been reduced in
that city through the impossibility of obtaining
an adequate supply of cannel, though within
twenty miles of the district producing it. The
truth is, according to competent geological
authorities, that, not reckoning Scotch Cannel,
which would be even more expensive here,
besides being too full of sulphur to be really
useful, there is not enough of this description of
coal in the three kingdoms to meet the demand
it is proposed to make, and this surely proves the
value of a suggestion made with as much
dogmatism as if it were a decree."

It happens that about twelve months ago the
present writer had some share in preventing the
erection of gasworks in the vicinity of Victoria
Park. On inspecting the interesting works we are
shown over now, the evidence of overcrowding,
and the inconvenience of manufacturing in a
cramped corner of the town, are so marked as to
suggest the question, why are not more extensive
works built? Then we are told of the
unfair opposition which a proposal to erect
gasworks anywhere creates; how bishops combine
in the Lords, and crotchety agitators—at which
stern phrase we modestly wince—influence the
Commons; and how the poor companies are
hunted from pillar to post until they have to put
up with existing accommodation, to the sore
detriment of their honest interests and the
public good. It is obvious enough that the
King's Cross works are too small for their
purpose; that the piling of retorts one on the
other, and on both sides the black caverns, to
compress as many as possible upon a given
flooring space, causes waste of labour, and is
additionally torturing to the men of fire.
Oatmeal and water is the drink supplied
gratuitously by the company, and is said to be
more permanently refreshing than any stimulant.
Beer, however, is insisted on when the work is
between two fires; and as the mere thought of
labouring here turns us faint, we cannot, as
seems expected, condemn the demand as
unreasonable. Our parks—least of all our beautiful
East-end park—must not be contaminated
by adjacent gasworks; but what we see to-day
makes us hope that a satisfactory solution to the
vexed problem of situation may be soon arrived
at, and be received tolerantly by the House.
Gas is even more locomotive than water, and
why should not the sources of supply be equally
distant from the crowded town?

An engine-house, warm, greasy, and humid,
in which huge green wheels revolve with
ponderous slowness, and metal pipings pursue the
even tenor of their way: another engine-house
of more modern type, both actively at work,
propelling gas through various purifiers, and
relieving clay retorts from undue
pressure; the valve-house, like a pantomimic
scene, with small dial-faces, metal handles, a
bright brass fender-looking arrangement, and
"the governor" doing steady work in the
corner. The "governor's house" is another
name for the valve-house, and is not the
residence of the ruling official of the company, but
the place where the supply of gas and its
quality is constantly tested. The "governor" is
a huge metal drum which regulates the quantity
of gas paid out by hydraulic pressure. "Somebody
putting his foot on the 'governor'" was, I
learn, the real cause of the terrible explosion
some years since at Vauxhall. Two jets of
gas are burning brightly in small temples on the
mantelpiece, and show by their height and
vigour the finality and brightness of the gas in
stock. Daily journals are kept of the state
of the weather, quantity of gas made, stock
in hand, pressure on the mains; and should
either of the jets before me fall beyond a certain
limit, inquiry and remedy immediately follow.

Crossing the yard again, with the fire from
retorts still flaring out of the open doors to
right and left, and the Men of Fire, grimy and
perspiring, everywhere busily at work, we ascend
a narrow staircase, and come to the photometer-
room. Here we look at what seems a Roman
Catholic consecrated wafer through a highly
polished apparatus which is something between
a microscope and a magic-lantern. A mahogany
scale, five feet long, with a jet of gas
burning at one end, and a sperm candle, which
consumes one hundred and twenty grains
lighted, stands at the other. A beautiful
mechanical arrangement, by which the shadow falling
from gas or candle places the precise
quality of the former beyond dispute, marking
it on the scale, and showing how many candles
it is equal to, is worked for our instruction;