SIGERSON (Dr.) of the Royal Irish Academy, has gone and said some mighty
unpleasant things about the Atmosphere. How he found them out, we can't
say, (and we hope _he_ can't:) but nevertheless, he declares, with the
most dreadful calmness, that if you go to visit the Iron Works, you will
inevitably breathe a great many hollow Balls of Iron, say about one two
thousandth of an inch in diameter! What these rather diminutive
ferruginous globules will do for you, we do not know; but you can see
for yourself, that with your lungs full of little iron balls you must
certainly be in a "parlous" state. We should say that we had quite as
lief have the air full of those iron spheres, termed Cannon Balls, as it
is now in France. It is true, one couldn't get many of _these_ inside
one with impunity; and equally true, that foundry men do manage to live,
with all that iron in their lungs; but we can't say we desire to "build
up an Iron Constitution," as the P-r-n S-r-p folks say, by the inhaling
process.
But SIGERSON is not content to render the neighborhood of Iron Works
questionable to the delicate and apprehensive; in "shirt-factory air" he
declares, upon honor, "there are little filaments of linen and cotton,
with minute eggs" (goodness gracious!) "Threshing machines," he more
than insinuates, "fill the air with fibres, starch-grains and spores,"
(spores! think of that;) and (what is truly ha(i)rrowing,) in "stables
and barber's shops" you cannot but breathe "scales and hairs." Good
Heavens!
What he says of printers and smokers is simply horrible; in short, this
dreadful SIGERSON has gone and made life a wretched and lingering (to
quote the sensitive Mrs. GAMP,) "progiss through this mortial wale."
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