existence, and indeed it is a matter of surprise that conscientious modern biographers have not looked more carefully at the original authorities, instead of being content to follow tradition, and I must earnestly plead for a reconsideration of the question of Titian's age by the future historians of Venetian painting. 15

If, as I believe, Titian was born in or about 1489, instead of 1476-7, it follows that he must have been Giorgione's junior by at least twelve years-a most important deduction-and it also follows that he cannot have produced any work of consequence before, say, 1505, at the age of sixteen, and he will have died at eighty-seven, and not in his hundredth year. The alteration in date would help to explain the silence of all records about him before 1511, when he would have been only twenty-two, and not thirty-five years old; it would fully account for his name not being mentioned by Dürer in his famous letter of 1506, wherein he refers to the painters of Venice, and it would equally account for the absence of his name from the commission to paint the Fondaco frescoes in 1507-8, for he would have been employed simply as Giorgione's young assistant. The fact that in 1511 he signs himself simply 'Io tician di Cador Dpñtore,' and not Maestro, would be more intelligible in a young man of twenty-two than in an accomplished master of thirty-five, and the character of his letter addressed to the Senate in 1513 would be more natural to an ambitious aspirant of twenty-four than to a man in his maturity at thirty-seven.16

Such are some of the obvious results of a change of date, but the larger question as to the development of Titian's art must be left to the future historian; for the importance of fixing a date lies in the application thereof.17

HERBERT COOK.

15 Before the discovery of the letter to Philip, Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle were quite prepared to admit that Titian was born after 1480' (vide N. Italian Painting, ii. 119, 120). Unfortunately they took the evidence of the letter as final, but finding themselves chronologically in difficulties, they shrewdly remark in their Titian, i. 38, note: The writers of these lines thought, and still think, Titian younger than either Giorgione or Palma. They were, however, inclined to transpose Titian's birthday to a later date than 1477, rather than put back those of Palma and Giorgione to an earlier period, and in this they made a mistake.' Perhaps they were not so far wrong after all!

16 For this most amusing letter see Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Titian, i. p. 153.

17 The evidence afforded by Titian's own portraits of himself (at Berlin and in the Uffizi) is inconclusive, as we do not know the exact years they were painted. The portrait at Madrid, painted 1562, might represent a man of seventy-three or eighty-six, it is hard to say which. But there is a woodcut of 1550 (vide Gronau, p. 164) which surely shows Titian at the age of sixty-one rather than seventy-four, and finally Paul Veronese's great 'Marriage at Cana' (in the Louvre), which was painted between June 1562 and September 1563, distinctly points to Titian being then a man of seventy-four and not eighty-seven. He is represented, as is well known, seated in the group of musicians in the centre, and playing the contrabasso.

THE REDUCTION OF TOWN FOGS

Two hundred and seventeen years have passed since John Evelyn wrote in his Diary, during the Great Frost, on the 24th of January, 1684, that London, by reason of the excessive coldness of the air hindering the ascent of the smoke, was so filled with the fuliginous steam of the sea-coal, that hardly one could see across the streets, and this filling the lungs with its gross particles, exceedingly obstructed the breath, so as one could hardly breathe.' The population was then half a million; it is now five millions.

In 1306 King Edward the First, on the petition of the citizens, had passed a law making the burning of sea-coal a capital offence. Whether any person was ever executed for this offence we have no information. But at any rate the maligned sea-coal was being freely utilised for cooking in Evelyn's time. And he felt so strongly the nuisance and the damage which its ill-burning caused that he wrote a special treatise called Fumifugium, pointing out the effects of smoke on health and on trees.

The growth of London until, with its suburbs, it covers an area of 100,000 acres, has made the prevention or reduction of smoky fogs, as I hope to show, a matter of life and death to a large number of its inhabitants. The need of the day is not so much scientific inquiry or invention as administrative regulation, by which dark fogs might, with known appliances, be reduced to almost harmless proportions. And, above all, some common sense of responsibility is needed to check the wasteful carelessness which throws so big a volume of the raw sewage of combustion into the air we breathe.

Co-operation for general welfare would in this, as in many other matters of citizenship, abolish the injuries of a selfish habit.

We do not realise how dangerously near we are approaching to the limits of bearable impurity in the air on which every minute of life depends.

During the last ten years there have been few fogs of the worst character, and only two or three of these have lasted many days. The great fog of 1880 increased the mortality by 2,994 in three weeks; the fog which ended on the 2nd of January, 1892, after covering the town with little intermission for a fortnight, caused an excess

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of 1,484 in one week. We cannot regard this fatality as the most severe which might be inflicted under any possible condition of weather.

The air of London is at any time different in composition from the air of the country. Ozone, a very minute but important constituent, is not found at all where the air has passed over a large town district, and oxygen is slightly deficient. Carbon dioxide exceeds the normal proportion by about one part in ten thousand. Vapour of water or relative humidity generally falls below the amount present in country air in the winter and at night. Sulphuric acid, hydrochloric acid, organic particles from living bodies, animal and vegetable débris in the form of visible or invisible dust, tarry or smoky particles, microbes, of many kinds, and the micro-organisms of disease are present in large excess.

Examination of the suspended matter in London air discovered fragments of hay, pinewood, linen and cotton fibre, feathers, skin, and vegetable and mineral matter; and in the streets, the principal constituent is finely ground stable manure. Compared with the air over the ocean, microbes are present in the proportion of 13,000 to 1, but as a rule the disease-producing bacteria in the open air of towns, though abundant, are too much diluted to have any appreciable effect on health. In a large town, it is calculated, a man inhales during ten hours 37,000,000 germs. The excess of fine dust of all kinds does, however, persistently weaken the constitution of dwellers in towns-and no wonder, for in every cubic inch inspired the Londoner has to deal with 10,000,000 particles instead of the 31,000 of mountain air.

Carbon dioxide, which in the country is found in the proportion of three parts (not four as usually stated) in every 10,000, very decidedly affects the health of citizens, but not so much from any abnormal amount in the streets as from the habits of people whose occupation keeps them within houses or workshops. Labourers and others employed out of doors are little the worse for the slightly increased proportion of carbon dioxide in ordinary weather. All persons who spend much of the day within walls (and they are the great majority in London) really require an extra amount of oxygen and a deficiency of carbon dioxide to put them near an equality with outdoor workers in the country. Instead of this, they have to breathe a slightly devitalised outside air, a largely devitalised indoor air, an immense excess of fine particles and microbes, and occasionally a choking fog full of tarry matter and a much increased proportion of carbon dioxide. Moreover, they are unaccustomed to use their lungs freely and breathe deeply; they have little opportunity of hard exercise and keeping up a good circulation; and many, immersed in tobacco-smoke and tuberculous dust, submit to be packed more closely than cattle on their daily journey in and out of town.

These conditions, bad in themselves, are aggravated during the prevalence of a dense fog; and the means of defence, even of strong constitutions, are apt to be overcome by a combination of toxic influences sufficiently prolonged.

The standard proportion of carbon dioxide, taken to represent a limit of organic impurity which should not be exceeded within closed spaces, has been fixed by the best observers at not more than 6 per 10,000 above that normally present in the air; 10 per 10,000 is the largest amount which should in any case be permitted. Dr. de Chaumont also devised a scale according to the sense of smell, and by this he described as 'close' a room in which vapour exceeded 4·7 grains in the cubic foot and carbon dioxide exceeded 10.7 in 10,000. In 'very close' the vapour exceeded 5.1 grains, and the carbon dioxide 13 in 10,000 volumes.

The amount of fresh air required by each person and by each gaslight in a room in order to keep the carbon dioxide within moderate limits is not generally realised. Every man at work, exerting himself gently, makes necessary a supply of 4,500 cubic feet per hour, and every batswing gas-flame from 5,400 to 9,000 cubic feet. A man in hard work and a gas-flame turned on full must together be supplied with 18,000 cubic feet per hour. These standards have been arrived at by calculation and experiment. Of course a still larger supply of diluting oxygen must in all cases be salutary. Where gas is burnt without much ventilation, headaches and other ailments &bound; and deficiency of fresh air, however caused, is a main element of predisposition to consumption and bronchitis. Much of the efficiency of teachers and scholars in crowded schools is lost through the effects of carbon dioxide and the products of respiration and combustion. A large Government department in London has saved the cost of electric lighting in the decreased loss of work through illness.

The contamination of closed spaces, dwelling-rooms, factories, workshops, and schools can always be reduced in ordinary weather by the admission of large quantities of air almost normal in composition, even in the central districts of large towns. During the prevalence of dense fogs this universal remedy is itself poisoned. By a series of chemical investigations, Dr. W. J. Russell, of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, proved that the amount of carbon dioxide during fogs rises frequently to two or three times the ordinary proportion, and on certain occasions during the densest fogs may exceed 14 parts in 10,000, or more than four and a-half times the amount present in the country. On the 11th of December, 1882, the measurement was 14.1, and on the 3rd of April, 1883, it was 13.3. The fog of the 11th of December was very dense, but not the worst on record. The fog of January, 1880, which was much more fatal, might have yielded a still larger proportion of impurity. This was much the

thickest fog in my experience. In some localities I found the maximum distance of view to be four and a-half yards. The fog of the 9th to the 14th of December, 1873, was a very heavy one, with intense cold, and killed many of the prize cattle at the Islington Show. The opposite side of a narrow street was invisible at noon.

In moderate fogs Dr. Russell found a large preponderance of sulphuric and hydrochloric acids compared with their quantity in fine weather. Thus on two fine days the sulphuric acid was '0119 and 0069, the hydrochloric nil; on two foggy days the sulphuric was '0476 and 0397, and the hydrochloric 0016 and 0058. The organic matter on the fine days was '0025 and ⚫0032; on moderately foggy days 0182 and 032. The amount of carbonic acid in the air,' he says, ' appears to vary exactly with the amount of floating matter in the air, and with the amount of soluble matter which can be washed out of it.' No examination had been made of the air during the worst fogs.

The bad effect of town fogs upon human health depends upon the largely increased amount of gaseous and organic impurities, the saturation, which always favours infection, and the low temperature. This last is important directly as laying the body open to attack through congestion, and indirectly as favouring the accumulation of living and dead organic matter, besides carbon dioxide, within a few feet of the ground.

Now the amount of carbon dioxide in schools, workshops, and inhabited rooms often exceeds 10 parts in 10,000 during ordinary weather; during the worst fogs, when windows are kept shut and the circulation of air reaches a minimum, it must in many cases exceed 20 parts. At such times the outside air may contain 14 parts or more, therefore its admission by windows or ventilators fails to reduce the accumulation to the degree of comparative safety. In workshops and theatres a proportion of 30 in 10,000 has been recorded, but during calm with dense fog the amount would be increased. In full railway carriages with closed windows the carbon dioxide must often reach 60 in 10,000. This devitalised air during foggy spells has a particularly bad influence on convalescents and on persons suffering from bronchitis or throat ailments. It passes on, in a potent condition, the germs of colds and other infections; it prepares the way for various kinds of illness. Large numbers of people must breathe during several days the sort of air which they can hardly bear in a theatre gallery.

The deficiency of sunshine in town during the winter months is most considerable when the country is enjoying bright calm frosty weather. The hours of bright sunshine during the four years 1883-6 were in London 3,925, at Kew 5,713, at St. Leonard's 6,880. From November, 1885, to February, 1886, the hours were in London 62, at Kew 222, at Eastbourne 300.