Punch,  33 (1857), 31.

The Social Treadmill: No. 11  [11/12]

Anon

Genre:

Serial, Essay, Drollery

Subjects:

Pollution, Health, Public Health, Gas Chemistry


    Laments the overcrowding and foul air of 'drawing-room penitentiaries'—the London clubs. Continuing the analogy between prisons and clubs, explains how a visitor to the 'wards' of this prison breathes the 'vitiated atmospheres of these black holes of Piccadilly'. Observes that the effect of this poor atmosphere is seen 'in the pale cheeks and dull eyes of the hardened offenders, who spend most of their lives in such confinement'. Notes the overheated condition of the rooms 'for every cluster of lights, every flower-stand, every overheated piece of humanity, is giving off caloric and carbonic acid, and absorbing breathable air'.



© Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical Project, Universities of Leeds and Sheffield, 2005 - 2020

Printed from Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical: An Electronic Index, v. 4.0, The Digital Humanities Institute <http://www.sciper.org> [accessed ]