Soot and Shelter

The "Mall" and "Bird Cage Walk" although much altered are still in their general effect, such as you must remember them, with their long rows of elsm which are now in the first freshness of their young green leaves, and which look particularly beautiful contrasted with the stems and branches, that town smoke has made completely black. The leaves, I grieve to say, will soon feel the same influence, and then woe to the inexperienced wight who takes refuge from a pelting shower beneath their branches, for each leaf, as it is struck by a heavy drop, flings out a little sprinke of soot in its rebound, and this descending with the drop that had disturbed it, daubs, with most inhospitable smuts, the shelteree beneath. But even six weeks of London atmosphere, though it does much to spoil the daylight freshness of those trees, does not prevent them from being very beautiful on a moonlight night.

Familiar Epistles from London, Dublin University Magazine, June 1833

London Smoke

"All strangers, I believe, are compelled to acknowledge the unfriendliness of a London atmosphere on their first arrival, at this season of the year. Both my companion and myself were seized with a violent catarrh, from which we have not yet recovered ; and we are told that few escape a similar fate. Whether it is to be attributed to the dampness of the air, or to the thick smoke inhaled—for the smoke, instead of rising, rolls down into the streets—is perhaps neither very easy, nor very important to determine. The effects are disagreeable in the last degree."

Nathaniel S. Wheaton, A Journal of a Residence during Several Months in London, 1830