The possibilities of landscape or decorative gardening are also artificially restricted in a smoky atmosphere. Cloudiness as such is one of the most important items in agricultural climatology. But in addition to this there are many shrubs and trees which do not thrive in smoke—rhododendrons, conifers, evergreens—while the beauty of all trees, shrubs and flowers is marred by deposits of smoky opacity.
In consequence of the above artistic limitations, the artistic education available not only for the masses but particularly for students of art in smoky cities, is necessarily restricted. Their first, and sometimes only, artistic impressions are derived from an artistically limited and ultra-utilitarian environment, and from besmirched and sordid surroundings instead of from a clear, clean atmosphere of artistic excellence.
Not only do grimy, physical surroundings debase the aesthetic ideals of the dweller in smoke, but they also probably tend to foster personal habits of carelessness. The children playing in the streets in grimy cities become so accustomed to soot and smut that they learn to revel in grime and to glory in grease. To say that we have become a “well washed” race (as say Sir Thomas Oliver and Dr. Woods Hutchinson) because we are being constantly defiled by atmospheric smut is tantamount to saying that we have become moral, healthy and vigorous because of contamination by the social plague or infection by virulent bacteria. It is not so. Even if we do resort to more frequent external cleansing this does not render us any cleaner, because we may forthwith become begrimed by the omnipresent smut of the air. Moreover, our lungs and alimentary canal can not so readily be “washed out,” so that smoke at least keeps us interiorally begrimed. So far as the young child is concerned, the labor of cleaning is usually thrown upon the mother. Mothers evidently grow weary of washing the faces and hands and changing the clothes of their youthful progeny several times a day. Hence the child is left to wallow in dirt. Adults may tend to continue the habits which they formed as children. They, too, at any rate, grow weary of constant ablutions and changes of garments, and will tend to adopt the more somber shades of apparel which are less readily soiled by soot. The lighter raiment which often is more pleasing to the eye, and in the summer time is more conducive to comfort, must often be tabooed in smoky cities. The wearing apparel in such cities in consequence will offer less variety than in cities of low-smoke content. Women in white fabrics must not venture to sit down on an unprotected park seat in smoky cities less they carry away a conspicuous ribbon of grime across their backs.
It is possible that habits of carelessness, indifference, or ready satisfaction which the dwellers in smoky cities may tend to acquire, in respect to personal cleanliness and dress and in respect to the artistic and cleanly appearance of the external city surroundings, may transfer to other aspects of their psychic existence, because, while the doctrine of formal discipline has been exploded in its crass form, psychological experiments show that habits which have been acquired in one phase of mental action will transfer more or less to other phases of mental action which have similar or identical elements ([36]).
Finally it should be emphasized that cities befouled with murky smoke are at a decided disadvantage as tourist or residential places. Wealthy tourists and globe trotters go to the brilliant, resplendent, ornate, clean cities—the show places—and not to the nasty, pungent smoke producers. Even if the tourist perchance does come to a dirty town he will rarely tarry there for any length of time. Few towns which tolerate the smoke nuisance can hope to compete for tourist trade. The loss in tourist trade caused by preventable smoke in manufacturing cities represents an enormous economic loss to the trades and professions of those cities. Not only so, people looking for a city residence will not seek centers reeking with smoke. Retired people of wealth will prefer the smoke-free cities of culture and art where they can inhale the uncontaminated, invigorating ozone of sun-kissed skies.
Summary of Conclusions
I. The injurious organic effects exerted by smoke on human beings are both direct and indirect. The direct effects are due to the injury caused by the smoke contents themselves, while the indirect effects arise from meteorological changes produced by atmospheric smoke.
II. The mental effects of smoke and smoke-produced weather states are likewise both direct and indirect. The indirect effects issue from bodily changes produced by smoke or smoke-produced weather states, while the direct effects are due to the influences of the mind’s own states upon its subsequent thoughts, disposition and conduct.
III. Smoke fills the atmosphere with acrid, poisonous compounds and soot particles which may serve as carriers of the obnoxious products of human fatigue, which irritate the sensitive membranes of the eyes, nose, throat, lungs and gastro-intestinal tract, increase the susceptibility of gastro-intestinal, pulmonary and naso-pharyngeal disorders, diminish the potential reserve, working capacity and well being of the individual, increase fatigue, irritability and malcontent, and may tend to hasten premature decay.