Besides the insanitary conditions which rendered the City so liable to outbreaks of infectious disease, there were other nuisances which afflicted the inhabitants of the City. It is rather difficult to imagine what John Evelyn would have said about a Black Country town of the present day, where the effects of smoke must be much more noticeable than in the London of 1661. But his indictment, although severe, is in the main true; the smoke nuisance has not decreased since the seventeenth century, and probably we tolerate it only because we are accustomed to it. It must be remembered that in Evelyn's day the use of coal for fuel, although not great, was rapidly increasing; and a tax on coal was often a source of considerable revenue.

That this glorious and ancient city, which from wood might be rendered brick, and (like another Rome) from brick made stone and marble; which commands the proud ocean to the Indies, and reaches the farthest Antipodes, should wrap her stately head in clouds of smoke and sulphur, so full of stink and darkness, I deplore with just indignation. That the buildings should be composed of such a congestion of misshapen and extravagant houses; that the streets should be so narrow and incommodious in the very centre, and busiest places of intercourse; that there should be so ill and uneasy a form of paving under foot, so troublesome and malicious a disposure of the spouts and gutters overhead, are particulars worthy of reproof and reformation; because it is hereby rendered a labyrinth in its principal passages, and a continual wet day after the storm is over.

The immoderate use of, and indulgence to seacoal alone in the city of London, exposes it to one of the foulest inconveniences and reproaches, that can possibly befall so noble, and otherwise incomparable a city: and that, not from the culinary fires, which for being weak, and less often fed below, is with such ease dispelled and scattered above, as it is hardly at all discernible, but from some few particular tunnells and issues, belonging only to brewers, dyers, lime-burners, salt, and soap-boilers, and some other private trades, one of whose spiracles alone, does manifestly infect the air, more than all the chimneys of London put together besides. And that this is not the least hyperbole, let the best of judges decide it, which I take to be our senses: whilst these are belching forth from their sooty jaws, the city of London resembles the face rather of mount Ætna, the court of Vulcan, Stromboli, or the suburbs of hell, than an assembly of rational creatures, and the imperial seat of our incomparable monarch. For when in all other places the air is most serene and pure, it is here eclipsed with such a cloud of sulphur, as the sun itself, which gives daily to all the world besides, is hardly able to penetrate and impart it here; and the weary traveller, at many miles distance, sooner smells, than sees the city to which he repairs.

This is that pernicious smoke which sullies all her glory, superinducing a sooty crust or furr upon all that it lights, spoiling the moveables, tarnishing the plate, gildings, and furniture, and corroding the very iron bars and hardest stones with those piercing and acrimonious spirits which accompany its sulphur; and executing more in one year, than exposed to the pure air of the country it could effect in some hundreds. It is this horrid smoke, which obscures our churches, and makes our palaces look old, which fouls our clothes, and corrupts the waters, so as the very rain and refreshing dews which fall in the several seasons, precipitate this impure vapour, which with its black and tenacious quality, spots and contaminates whatever is exposed to it.