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Rh of the London atmosphere, which I confess I cannot describe.

“Once upon a time, some forty years ago, there lived at Highgate, which then still retained some of the characters of a village, a lady who declared that when a yellow fog drifted up from London she could detect the smell of tobaceo smoke in it. to most people the odour is flatly that of coal smoke, which is perhaps always more or less to be perceived in London air. This at any rate would seem to have been the opinion of Edward Jenner, if we may trust a note made by Farington in his diary for 1809, which is being printed in the Morning&nbps;Post. Tarington’s note is as follows :

“‘Dr. Jenner observed to Lawrence that He could by smelling at His Handkerchief on going out of London ascertain when he came into an atmosphere untainted by the London air. His method was to smell at His Handkerchief occasionally, and while He continued within the London atmosphere He could never be sensible of any taint upon it ; but, for instance, when He approached Blackheath and took His Handkerchief out of His pocket where it had not been exposed to the better air of that situation—His sense of smelling having become more pure he could perceive the taint, His calculation was that the air of London affected that in the vicinity to the distance of three miles’” (The Lancet).

Paris, in like manner, has its own peculiar aroma, Lord Frederick Hamilton analyses it correctly into “one-half wood-smoke, one-quarter roasting coffee, and one-quarter drains.” But for myself the Paris air always brings a curious half-suppressed feeling of excitement, part of it pleasure, part apprehension, as if something tremendous were about to happen. But here perhaps