Page:The Building News and Engineering Journal, Volume 22, 1872.djvu/67

 - than it ought to be. its streets, even the principal ones, is common-place, uninteresting, and even ugly, and that, compared - with the advantages gained, a very trifling expense ‘cured, and must therefore be endured, THE BUILDING NEWS. ol Thirdly, the general aspect of would make an astonishing difference in this respect. Fourthly, there is a want of uniformity of plan, and of general supervision from a fine art point of view. As to the first head, London is dirty far beyond what it need be. <A certain amount of dirt we must always expect in every large assemblage of houses and human beings, but in London everything is dirty. How many of its buildings are so blackened by smoke, with their mouldings and cornices so choked up with the dirt of years, and, in some cases, of centuries, that the effect intended by the archi- tect is quite lost! How soon do its monotonous rows of brick-built houses assume one eyen tint of dirt! Even the trees seem only to assume their natural colour after a good shower of rain. The air is so full of dirt that everything is covered in an incredibly short time with a thick coating of dust; and as to the streets, an hour or two's rain is suffi- cient to convert them into a liquid sea of filthy mud. Now the question is—Is all this dirt absolutely necessary? Is there any reason, in the nature of things, why the dirt and smoke should have been allowed to accumulate on 8. Paul’s, for instance, apparently ever since it was built, without being once removed? Would it be sacrilege to give a good clean- ing to the beautiful spires and spirelets in the City, the details of which are quite hidden by dirt? And why is the Mansion House the only building which is allowed an annual washing? This simple clean- ing alone would quite alter the aspect of many views in London. Then look at the streets! A very few hours of rain are sufficient to make the evil ap- pear. They are soon covered with a thick dirty ‘mud; if the rain keeps on this becomes more liquid, and is worked up by the cabs and vehicles into a regular slough, as these rush through the streets they scatter the mud right and left over the unfor- tunate foot-passengers, these last transfer the mud from the road to the foot-paths, and from thence into the houses, till the dirt and filth of London in wet weather has become proverbial. As anexample of the mischief arising from this cause Mr. Payne said that a few weeks ago he attended the service at 8. Paul’s on Sunday afternoon. It was a miserably wet day; the statutes had just been thoroughly cleaned—he believed for the first time since they were put up—and the crowds were being admitted by the west door; but with the wisdom too often characteristic of ecclesiastical authorities, no mats or scrapers were provided for those who entered to clean their feet, and the dirt from the streets outside was being rapidly transferred to the marble floor, there to dry, and to be afterwards ground up and transferred in due course, in the form of dust, to the lately-cleaned statues and other parts of the building. But if the public buildings and the chief streets are dirty, what shall we say when we come to the back slums? What about the neighbourhoods of Shoreditch and the New Cut? Those who have been em- ployed on surveys or valuations in the back slums of London have seen those filthy little cottages where each room is the dwelling- place of a family. It is absolutely impossible to materially improve the aspect and cheerful- ness of London, or make it vie in appearance with a city like Paris, till some thorough and frequent system of cleansing is adopted, both for the streets and buildings. The first and most urgent want of London is cleanliness, and cleanliness we shall never haye till public attention is thoroughly awakened to the evil, and the present condition of things is con- sidered insupportable. Then, perhaps, a commission might be appointed to see why London is the dirtiest capital in the world, and some measures might be adopted for its continual cleansing. At present the dirt seems to be regarded as an evil which cannot be Some of the measures which might obviously be adopted are as follows :—Those materials might be employed for the streets which experience has proved. to be the most cleanly, such as the asphalte and wood paving ; and the streets and footpaths should be thoroughly cleansed as often as found necessary, the present staff for this purpose being at least doubled or trebled. Those materials should be employed in the facades of streets which can be most easily cleaned, and every building of any importance should be thoroughly cleaned at least once a year. What is the use of spending thousands of pounds in elaborate carving and ornament, and then permitting it to become merely the lodging-place of soot and dirt? As a cleanly covering for buildings in a large town, Mr. Payne held that the much-abused stucco, which can be painted as often as wished, occupied a very high place, and Regent-street and the buildings round Regent's Park are certainly the most cheerful and elean-looking in London. He did not wish for this reason to suggest building London fac¢ades in future with stucco fronts as the perfection of street archi- tecture. If those who had the charge of the streets and footpaths kept them as clean as they might be kept, and if those who had the charge of public buildings did the same, and if each private owner of a house with a street front was compelled to give his house a thorough and frequent cleaning, whether it were stone, brick, or plaster, a great step would be obtained towards altering the character and cheerful- ness of London; and if the saving of things now constantly spoilt by dirt were taken into account, the measures adopted, even though expensive at first, would probably be found economical in the long run. With regard to the second head, that London is much more smoky than it ought to be, he thought no one would disagree with him on this head, though the remedy might be more difficult to suggest than in the last case. On coming up by train from the country on a bright spring morning, with a blue sky overhead, we notice a haze hanging over the horizon towards London as we approach the great metropolis, and finally the clear blue sky and pure air may be said to entirely disappear when we are whirled into the heart of the town. A really clear blue sky is never seen in London; there is always to be noticed a haze and dimness about it quite different to country air. Some one will say, perhaps, that this is a necessary evil, and one of the natural results of life in a large city; but anybody who has been accustomed to walk about Paris must have noticed that the air there seems quite as pure as country air, and everything in the best quarters looks fresh and clean, from the sky down to the houses in the streets, except perhaps, now, where damaged by the shells of the Germans or the fanatical hands of the Com- munists. It is almost impossible for us to tell how many ills we Londoners owe to this hydra smoke, belched forth incessantly from hundreds of thousands of fires. It fills the air with soot, carbonic acid gas, and other unhealthy products; it forms a large pro- portion of the dust which flies about ruining every- thing ; it injures our lungs and injures our eyes “it eats its way into our pictures and colour decorations ; and entirely prevents the possibility of any general view of London being obtained. From the top of the Monument or St. Paul’s on a calm day the glorious prospect of industry and wealth rattling through the streets below and carried on the bosom of Old Father Thames, or attested by those forests of masts in the docks, is bounded in a mile or two by the sulphurous cloud which enshrouds everything in its arms. “On a very windy day you can see further, and when the wind shifts rapidly from point to point it is curious to notice the smoky giant rolling first on to one and then on to another quarter of the city, the spires and prominent buildings of which alter- nately appear and disappear from view. The smoke generally appears to cling pertinaciously to the town itself, so that the heights round, such as Highgate, Hampstead, and the Crystal Palace, are often visible, whereas the intermediate parts cannot be seen. What general views of London would be without smoke can be sometimes seen on a bright summer’s Sunday morning, when searcely any fires are lighted. It is this smoke, too, which forms a great part of the dust and black specks complained of under the last head, spreading a fine coat of dirt and a gloomy colour over every - thing they touch. Who does not know what a plague and nuisance a smoky chimney is? He had known more than one London architect’s office where the draughtsmen have been obliged to sit in their great coats and gloves in the middle of December or January, or else endure the alternative of being gradu- ally smoked. Then comes thesmoke-doctor, that night- mare of the architect, with his horrible twisted chim- neys, zine cowls, and other abortions, all warranted to cure, and “very handsome,” according to the patentees’ notions. These horrible things form an eyesore in every street, and damage almost every architectural view in London. Let any one go on to Waterloo-bridge and look at the noble and stately front of Somerset House, crowned with long rows of chimney-pots of such motley description that one might fancy that all the smoke-doctors in London had had a turn at the building. “Ah,” says the Gothic architect, ‘that is the fault of your Classic style, quite unsuitable to this cold climate, and to which chimneys cannot be adapted. In Gothic architecture chimneys are a positive improvement.” Are they? Go a little further down the river and look at the Temple Library. Yes, those are very pretty chimneys, those at the sides, but they are never used, because they were found tosmoke. One would hesitate to say that those ugly zine pipes that climb up the roof (forming some of the most untidy chimneys in London) are a positive improvement. It must be conceded, whichever way we look at it, that this smoke is a nuisance which ought to be abated: in fact, next to dirt, the crying evil we have to call out against in London is smoke, and, as in the former case, we shall never be rid of it till the public is persuaded that London is more smoky than it ought to be, and gives battle to the hydra with that dogged determination to conquer which the British public generally does show when fully alive to an evil. Even then it would take months of dis- cussion, and the brains of our scientific men would be severely taxed before we should have an answer to the question: How can we have heat and warmth without smoke, or with much less smoke than,we have at present? This question has never been thoroughly and satisfactorily solved, though much has been written on the subject. One of the chief methods which have been proposed to reduce the evil of smoke is improved grates and stoves, by which the amount of air supplied to the fire is regulated, and wasteful eombustion prevented, and there is no doubt that a great deal might be accomplished in this way, and that it is a very important part of our duties as architects to study this subject and see that our clients are provided with economical grates, for half the smoke and soot flying about in the air is nothing but wasted fuel and heating power lost. Closed stoves no doubt give less smoke than open grates, but it is to be doubted if Englishmen will ever give up their cheerful fireside for an ugly black stove. The same objection applies with equal force to heating by steam and hot water, and although an open fire often bakes you on one side whilst you are almost frozen on the other, still a bright blazing fire is a nice thing on a cold winter night, when the snow and hail are beat- ing outside, and not to be lightly given up. In New York anthracite coal, or coal without bitumen, is used to prevent smoke, with great success, and it seems strange that in this country coal should be prohibited on railway engines, where very little damage would be done by it, and be allowed in large towns, where its effects are so disastrous. In Paris, at no very distant period, wood was burnt for fuel. No doubt one of the most feasible plans for reducing the smoke nuisance would be to make regulations as to the sort of fuel used, and by advocating the use of coke and non-bituminous coal wherever possible. Another scheme has been hinted at in engineering circles. Those who have been into the Iron and Coal districts may have noticed some of the iron furnaces belching forth large quantities of flame and smoke, whilst others which are hard at work appear to be out, by their giving forth so little. Now, what is the reason of this difference? Simply that the owners of the latter class. of furnaces have found out that by throwing away so much flame and smoke they are wasting a great deal of heating power, and they collect the smoke and gases at the top of the furnace and bring them back again for heating their boilers and other purposes. Is it not, therefore, possible that if all the unconsumed matter which flies off in smoke in a vast city like London were in some way collected and made use of a very great saving would be effected, and the nuisance of smoke almost entirely obviated? The scheme referred to is some- thing of this sort:—Every block of houses would be provided with on2 or more smoke towers, into which the flues would be taken by descending or ascending flues, as most convenient, with openings at intervals for sweeping. In the smoke tower the smoke would be either burnt or utilised. The advantages which could be afforded by this plan, if it could be brought from the leyel of mere suggestion to a practical scheme, are obvious, and there seems no reason why it should not answer as well for a block of small buildings as for one large one, or a factory, where it has often been carried out. In «ddition to carrying away and neutralising the smoke now thrown into the air, it would be a fatal blow to smoky chimneys, and the smoke doctor and all his tin chimney-pots would be annihilated, for smoky chimneys are almost always caused by a downdraught on a chimney from some roofor higher point. The smoke towers would be a fine opportunity for varied architectural design, and such blunders as the chimneys of Somerset House and the Temple Library, would be unnecessary in the future. And with such powerful extraction shafts as the towers would be we should haye much greater chance of thorough ventilation for our houses, public buildings, and sewers, than we haye at present. At all events, something ought to be done. It is a scandal that the inhabitants of New York and Paris should keep their cities, comparatively speaking, free from smoke, while we, who consider ourselves in ad- vance, or at least, abreast of our neighbours, should permit the atmosphere of our city to be so polluted as itis at present. London never can and never will be a really pleasant place to live in till it is far less smoky than it is at present. (To be concluded.)