The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. SATURDAY, JUNE 7, 1913. SMOKE FOGS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVI, Issue 28, 7 June 1913, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. SATURDAY, JUNE 7, 1913. SMOKE FOGS.

The heavy toll through fog at sea, by the loss of shipping and the Jives of those on board is, many people will be surprised to learn, infinitely less than that levied, in lives and money, when smoke fogs settle down upon the land. "Pearson's" relates how during the summer of 1909 Glasgow was visited by two periods of smoke log, each lasting several days. During the first, Glasgow's deathrate rose from 18 to 2,3 per thousand, and dining the second to 33 per thousand, though the rate in the surrounding country hardly rose at all. "One thousand and sixty-three deaths were directly attributable to the noxious state of the atmosphere, and they passed unnoticed. Ten years 1 previously, when about a thousand ' soldiers were killed and wounded in! a week in South Africa, that week ; was called "The Black Week," and' the effect throughout the country: was gloomy in the extreme." In London last October there was a three! weeks' spell of foggy weather, and i the death-rate for the metropolitan area promptly leaped up front 12.2 per thousand to 40 for those three] weeks. Of course, apart from the loss of life, there is the great loss of money also, and it is estimated that a season's fogs cost London at least j five millions sterling. This huge sum is math- up of payments for extra artificial light, burned in homes, in I offices, and warehouses; the loss ofi time by workers, such as artists, photographers, and others who must ' have daylight; the depreciation of property; extra coal burned, owing to the fog's interruption of sun warmth ; extra washing of garments and of' i home furnishings made needful by fog grime—besides all the sums spent on I fog signals and municipal supervision of traffic befogged. Thanks, however, to the Coal Smoke Abatement Society, fog in London has been vir- ■ tually halved and sunshine doubled.

"Whereas in the years ISBS-1890," says "Pearson's," "we had only an average of -'SB minutes a day winter sunshine, now we get 1 hour 11 minutes, and we might, it we liked, get a great deal more."