ng been put under a little
compulsion.

An instance, perhaps even more striking, was supplied a few years ago
by certain chemical works which vented fumes noxious to a whole
neighbourhood. Being prosecuted for the nuisance, the proprietors were
forced to make flues of great length, through which the fumes might be
conducted to a considerable distance. The consequence was surprising.
A new kind of deposit was formed in the interior of the flues, and
from this a large profit was derived. The sweeping of a chimney would
sometimes produce several thousand pounds. At the same time, nothing
can be more certain than that this material, but for the threat of
prosecution, would have been allowed to continue poisoning the
neighbourhood, and, consequently, not yielding one penny to the
proprietors of the works.[1]

It has pleased Providence to order that from all the forms of organic
life there shall arise a refuse which is offensive to our senses, and
injurious to health, but calculated, under certain circumstances, to
prove highly beneficial to us. The offensiveness and noxiousness look
very much like a direct command from the Author of Nature, to do that
which shall turn the refuse to a good account--namely, to bury it in
the earth. Yet, from sloth and negligence, it is often allowed to
cumber the surface, and there do its evil work instead. An important
principle is thus instanced--the essential identity of Nuisance and
Waste. Nearly all the physical annoyances we are subjected to, and
nearly all the influences that are operating actively for our hurt,
are simply the exponents of some chemical solecism, which we are,
through ignorance or indifference, committing or permitting. There is
here a double evil--a positive and a negative. When the Londoner
groans at the smokiness of his streets, and the particles of soot he
finds spread over his shirt, his toilet-table, and every nice article
of furniture he possesses, he has the additional vexation of knowing,
that the smoke and soot should have been serving a useful purpose as
fuel. When he passes by a railway over the tops of the houses in some
mean suburb, and looks down with horror and disgust on the pools and
heaps of filth which are allowed to encumber the yards, courts, and
narrow streets of these localities, to the destruction of the health
of the inhabitants, he has a second consideration before him, that all
these matters ought to be in the care of some easy-acting syste