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■some years since, already* published concerning the melioration
of it, in and about this great and populous city, accidentally obnoxious
*Fuinifugium. to ,the effects of those nauseous vapours exhaling from those many
unclean places, and tainting that dismal cloud of sulphureous, if notarsenical, smoke which we incefsantly breathe in. I know the lateterrible conflagration, by the care and industry of the magistrate incausing so many kennels, sinks, gutters, lay-stalls, and other nuisances(receptacles of a stagnant filth,).to be removed, must needs have exceed-ingly contributed to the purifying of the air, as I am persuaded wouldappear upon a political observation of the bills of mortality. But whatI cannot yet but deplore, is, that when that spacious area was so long arasa tabula , the churchyards had not been banished to the north wallsof the city, where a grated inclosure of competent breadth, for a milein length, might have served for an universal cemetery to all parishes,distinguished by the like separations, and with ample walks of trees;the walks adorned with monuments, inscriptions, and titles, apt for con-templation and memory of the defunct; and that wise and antient lawof the Twelve Tables restored and revived. But concerning this andhortulan buryings, see Book iv. Happy, in the mean time, had it beenfor the further purgation of this august metropolis, had they then banishedand proscribed those hellish vulcanos, disgorging from lime-kilns, forges,glafs-houses, brew-houses, soap and salt boilers, chandlers, hat-makers,and other trades, one of whose funnels vomits more smoke than all theculinary and chamber rfires of a whole parish, perniciously infecting theambient air with a black melancholy canopy, to the detriment of themost valuable moveables and furniture of the inhabitants, and the wholecountry around. A bar of iron shall be more exeded and consumed
with rust in one year in this city, than in thrice seven in the country.
Why might it not therefore be worth a severe and public edict to removethese volcanos, and infernal houses of smoke, to a competent distance;some down the river; others, which require conveniency of freshwater, up the Thames , among the streams about Wandsworth, &c. theircommodities and manufactures brought up to capacious wharfs on thebank, or London side, to the increase of a thousand watermen andother labourers, of whom we cannot have too many ?
Now to demonstrate that the amoval of these insufferable nuisanceswould infinitely clarify the -air and render it more wholesome, I shall