Page:Doom of the Great City - Hay - 1880.djvu/32

30 at present. What would be the effect of that? There would not be the chance of a recovery; each gasp would only aggravate the distress, suffocation complete and sudden would be inevitable. That is the way in which the cabman’s death was brought about; and that is the way, in my opinion, in which the Bermondsey affair took place.

“The more I study these things in my mind the gloomier become my forebodings. We do not know the laws which govern the fogs of London, because in some measure they are artificial, and so differ from other mists. We only know that they have tended to become ‘worse,’ as we express it, of late years. How are we to know that this intensifying has reached its limits? May not the loss of life be even more serious from this cause? It is a pity that Government, and private individuals too, have not been readier in striving after some means of abating what we have long known to be an intolerable nuisance, and what seems about to become a very grave evil. Scientists have indeed made suggestions, but no steps have as yet been taken to determine their practical utility. Perhaps this accident in Bermondsey may direct attention to the subject.”

I can remember yet the indescribable thrill which passed through me during these conversations. How wonderful it seems to me, looking back upon these events, that the warning never came until too late to be of service, that the cause for alarm so shortly preceded the blow. About the very time that we were sitting talking, scenes were enacting not so far from us thatbut I must proceed regularly with my tale.

As you may guess, the horrible rumour which I had heard so circumstantially detailed, together with the