Читать книгу Aromatics and the Soul: A Study of Smells онлайн

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The hygienic reformation of Britain, although adumbrated by sundry laws made at intervals from the fifteenth century onwards, was not seriously taken in hand until as late as the sixties of last century, and Disraeli’s famous Act defining a bad smell as a “nuisance” became law in 1875.

But although we may justly congratulate ourselves upon the hygienic achievements of England, one result of which has been the minimising of unpleasant odours, nevertheless, as a wider consideration of the facts will show us, the task of cleansing the air of England is not yet entirely completed. It is doubtless true that what we may term domestic stenches have for the most part been dispelled, but as regards public fœtors there are still, I regret to say, a few that abide with us, seemingly as nasty as ever they were.

One deplorable instance you will encounter at the Paddington terminus of the Great Western Railway no less, at a certain platform of which station, lying in wait for our fresh country cousins on their arrival in London, there lurks a livid concoction of ancient milk, horse-manure, live stock, dead stock, and, in the month of July, fermenting strawberries, as aggressive and unashamed as the worst Lucerne has to offer. I commend it to the attention of the Medical Officer of Health for Paddington.