When he was in Shanghai over two years ago in connexion with the water supply and sanitation of the Settlement, Professor Fowler considered it his duty to call attention to the dangers to health arising from the amount of smoke produced by the ever-increasing number of factories Up to that time we had not paid much attention to the smoke nuisance, probably because it was of recent growth, but with the greater number of factories in the western district especially, not all of which employ electric power, the evil will undoubtedly become more general. In this, connexion some figures given by "Dr. J. Owens at a recent congress of the Royal Sanitary Institute are worth reproducing, if for no other reason than to show the amount of filth which chimneys are able to distribute through the air. These are as follows:—
The mean monthly deposit for the year ending March 31, 1920, varied from 39.30 tons per square mile in Southwark Park. London, to 7.02 tons' in Malvern. In St. Helens the monthly deposit per square mile was 35.40 tons, and in Queen's Park, Glasgow, it was 31.10 tons.
In fairness to the factories, however, he mentioned that the domestic fire is responsible for more atmos-phene pollution than the factory furnace, but there is a qualification to be noted as regards Shanghai. It is in summer time that we suffer most discomfort from the smuts and soot blown about by every wind, and ai that time the domestic fires are a negligible quantity.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.