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Show GAS AND ITS CENTENARY. Illumlnant Was First Looked Upon with Much Alar.n. Gan, as a practical illumlnant, passed pass-ed Its century mark on January 2S. On that day In 1807 there wna In Lon don "a new and singular spectacle," according to the account of a visitor, "the whole tango of i'all Mall, from St. James' to Cockspur street, was lighted up by means of lamps fed with gas Instead of cotton and oil, and certainly cer-tainly In n stylo of much suporlor brilliancy. This was the first instance of street lighting by coal gas In London, Lon-don, or In any other city. The meilt of tho entcipriso is duo to Wlnsor, n German company-promoting export, , who wns especially Interested In tho question of economic fuel. His pamphlets, pamph-lets, however, contained so much extravagant ex-travagant fanaticism and quackery that they retarded rather than fur-tlieted fur-tlieted his hchemeB, which met with an extraordinary amount of opposition, opposi-tion, oven from enlightened people. Sir Wnlter Scott wrote that there was a madman proposing' to light London Lon-don with smoke. Awful consequences wero piedlcted. The gas would pol-hon pol-hon the air and blow up tho Inhabitants: Inhabit-ants: It was explosive, dangerous, offensive of-fensive and unmanageable; the pipes convylng It would be hot and apt to produce conflagrations. The lamplight- . era to a man opposed the new mode of street lighting, and It Is curious to no- 1 tlce the great hesitation ns to Its possibility pos-sibility expressed In contemiKirary scientific nnd popular literature. When n chartered company was at I length foimed In 1810, the Bharehold- I era wero pitied iih Idiots; and David 1 I'ollock, for 30 years Its governor, re-celved re-celved some extraoidinary answers In hoggercl rhyme from otherwise sober j and staid Individuals whom he had j asked to take shares. |