Sir,—I am a nuisance, and therefore I suppose it is right, in the abstract, that I should be put down. Unfortunately, however, many of the persons and things by which I am surrounded are the same to me, and I feel, by fits, vastly inclined to extinguish them, although I know full well, in my sane moments, that they are generally useful. And so it is, right to the end of the piece; everything and everybody is, by turns, a nuisance to everybody and everything else; and if there were no restraint upon the public vanity, and private pique, and officious frivolities which affect these conflicting elements, the whole body politic, being composed of nuisances, would be destroyed, like the Irish cats in the story. In fact, sir, there is nobody in the world that is not a nuisance to somebody; though that is hardly a sufficient reason why they should be allowed to worry one another. But in these days, the art and mystery of grumbling—that native prerogative which has grown up so luxuriantly in the soil of our English freedom, that the grumblers now constitute an eminently valuable power in the state—the art and mystery of grumbling (it really is artful and mysterious sometimes) is now growing into a kind of social scurvy, more annoying than serviceable, and sometimes exceeding in offensiveness the nuisances which it scratches into notice. The contagion is getting to such a pitch just now, that it is time for the nuisances to speak for themselves—for even a nuisance has a right side—and although I myself am one, I shall be grateful if you will allow me—just this once—to say a few words respecting the treatment to which many of my humbler brethren are subjected by the magnates of the tribe. I feel the more hopeful that you will grant this, since I know that I am not the only nuisance to which you have, with admirable forbearance, opened the columns of your excellent journal.

Happily, the expression of opinion is so free in this country, that—although some offensive persons deny that a nuisance has the slightest right to appeal to any of the senses—I will venture to assert, backed by all known law and custom, that even a nuisance has a right to be heard—at least, in its own defence; thanks to that instinctive leaning to fair play which, while it deprecates anything that is foul, yet acknowledges that even foulness itself may, sometimes, have a fair side. My dear sir, we nuisances have endured so much, as we may say, from those of our own household, that the patience of the most Christian nuisance in the world must give way under such an incessant fire of impertinent insult. Ah me! there seems to be so little fellow-feeling amongst nuisances now-a-days, that it may be worth while to remind them all of the poet's little sermon beginning,—

Nuisance-hunters are always, of course, a nuisance to the nuisances; but the hunters are so often worse, upon the whole, than the hunted, that it would be a general benefit to hold up the mirror to these inconsiderate grumblers a little now and then. To whom, then, in this difficulty, can we appeal, but to you, oh Mr. Editor? who are yourself a very rock of offence to some misguided persons; who are, doubtless, a stumbling-block to you.

How the theme widens as one pursues it There is something comical about the pathology of public grumbling. Is it not a fact well known to you, my dear sir, that there exists an inexhaustible class of persons who, having little or no capacity for distinguishing themselves publicly in any nobler fashion, and fearing, above all things, that obscurity which is their natural destiny, are constantly racking their wits for something to write to the papers about. How many such have you, yourself, sir, out of the sheer kindliness of your nature—not unmixed with a certain sense of the humour of the thing—lent a little fame to, by deigning, occasionally, to embalm their crude frivolities in your own clear "nonpareil". To such persons, anything will serve for a subject, if they can only twist it into the shape of a complaint: strong smells, and strange smells, which are not strong; suspicious loiterers in lonely places; gaslight when the moon shines, and want of gas when a cloud happens to be passing over the moon; flying chips from masons' chisels, which have been stopt in their flight by the rubicund tip of some respectable gentleman's nose; bits of orange peel on the flags; public clocks that are too fast, or too slow, or are stopt altogether, or have their fingers bent, or the faces of which are partly hidden by the encroaching insignia of ambitious pawnbrokers, or are in places where they are not needed, or are not in places where they are needed; pavements which are too slippery for horses, and too rough for ladies; music to people who have no ear for it, and noises to people who have a delicate ear for music, and either to people who like neither; mutually-discordant neighbours; church bells that are not rung, and church bells that are rung too much, and church bells that are not melodious when they are rung; holes in the street, and places where holes are likely to be, sometime; too much water, and too little water; cockle shells; broken pots; the smell of dinners floating up from hotel kitchens; and the inarticulate wails of chip-sellers and fish women; want of loyalty to the crown; want of loyalty to the people; the insolence of cabmen, and railway buffers; sneezing during service-time; fast-days, proposed by people who are ill with feasting, and feast-days, proposed by people who are ill with fasting; general holidays, proposed by those who are paid for their holidays, and objected to by those who are not paid for them; and a thousand other things, more insignificant even than these; sometimes ferreted out by ingenious old fogies, of an irritable disposition, who go tooting about the streets, "finding things out;" or by young "green" persons, driven to their wits' end by a kind of literary measles. Heaven knows, I do not wish to "freeze the genial current" of such poor souls as these latter, but then, Mr. Editor, we must draw the line somewhere. With respect to the former, have I not seen such a self-elected old nuisance inspector, going slowly along the street, groping with his sharp proboscis for something in the morning air to grumble about in graceful prose, and meeting with a smell which he did not quite understand—a smell which perhaps had travelled "ever so far" before it met him, and was on its way into the country, there to die peaceably upon the general air, if he had only allowed it to go—he straightway halts, he sniffs at it carefully—he affiliates it upon something convenient—he looks grave—he whips out a pocket-book, and makes a note, to be wrought into an epistolary complaint at leisure, in the fervent hope of its appearing among Saturday's correspondence. Have I not known persons, whose jangled senses, refusing the LethÆn balm of sleep, have lain awake o' nights, listening indignantly to the weird howls of libidinous cats, prowling about the back yards, and the rigging of the house, and making the sleepless midnight doubly hideous with their "shrill ill will,"—who have started up irritably from their pillow at last, and, striking a match, have exclaimed, "Drat that cat! Why don't the police look after these things? I will write to the papers." In fact, sir, the extravaganzas of public complaint are endless in variety, and, not unfrequently, very unreasonable.

I know a manufactory of a certain kind, which was established many years ago, in a spot as remote as was convenient, and wholly uninhabited for some distance around, in the hope of being free from the charge of anything in the shape of nuisance; but, as years rolled on, population gathered about it, and grumbling began, which, by irregular fits, has been carried on ever since; and whenever the complaint could manage to get a "respectable start," it was sure to be well followed up; without thought, as such cries often are. Even in the papers of the last few days, letter after letter has appeared, complaining of the effluvia arising from certain alum works in Salford. Some of these letters are written by gentlemen whose delicate nasal discrimination amounts to a marvel, if not to a miracle, when we remember the distance they live from the spot complained of. How on earth any smell, such as the one alluded to by these gentlemen, can manage to travel two mortal miles, in a high wind, working its passage through a hundred other smokes and smells as it goes, and still preserve its own individuality, surpasses me to know. But so it is. Up to Kersall Moor, and other green nooks of nestling, miles off, where the human nose is critical, this compact nuisance cleaves its way through the murky air, keeping wonderfully free from communion with the elements it passes through, and strikes the senses at that distance as distinctly as if it were a flat-iron. It seems to hold itself in till it has found out noses which can appreciate it, and then it "comes out strong," evidently making an effort to reveal all the pent-up pungency of its nature, in the hope of gaining a little respectable distinction. It is an aristocratic smell, too. It likes good society, and will associate with none but gentlemanly noses. It has to travel for it, though; for, like the prophets, it is not honoured with any remarkable notice in its own neighbourhood. Now, noses such as these are "something like," as the saying is; and, but for such noses, how on earth should we, who live amongst it, be able to discriminate one smell from another in the complication of odours which crowd the air of this busy district,—except in such cases as the town's manure yard, which overpowers everything else for a mile around with its intolerable native strength,—is strong enough, indeed, in the height of summer, "for a man to hang his hat upon," as the Irish say. That, now, is a smell really worth notice, if it were only possible to get an alderman or two to speak about it.

When it happens to be fashionable to raise an outcry against any particular manufacturer, as in the case of these unfortunate alum works, what is that manufacturer to do? Is he to take up his works and walk, from one locality to another, every time an inconsiderate complaint happens to be made against him? Is he to become a kind of nomadic outcast? Is he to betake himself to utter solitude, and go from one "desert where no men abide" to another "desert where no men abide"—a manufacturing voice, crying for orders in the wilderness, and finding none—until his occupation becomes unprofitable to himself or anybody else?

And then, the tone in which complaint after complaint has been uttered, in the case of these works in Salford, is rather curious. "The Nuisance in Pendleton!" That is the title of more than one letter on the subject. "The Nuisance in Pendleton!" Good heavens! Who art thou, O man, that writeth thus? Oh, happy Pendleton, with one nuisance! Go thy ways, and break forth into singing, thou pleasant, and, in some places, rather green suburb,—break forth into singing, even from Windsor Bridge right away up Eccles Old Road, and in every other direction, to the utmost extent of thy remarkable borders,—break forth into singing! Thou with the long pole standing near the church, and the cock upon the top of it,—rejoice, and give thanks, for thy extraordinary exemption from the common troubles of this manufacturing locality! And well might Pendleton sing, if this were true; but who does not know how many things which are really useful and necessary, are not always pleasant to those who have no immediate interest in them? Who does not know that if everything which is a nuisance to somebody or another, at one time or another, were removed from society, there would be hardly anything useful left in society at all,—and if all the nuisances in society were to cry out in this way, at once, against each other, who knows where it would end? They would cleave the general ear with horrid grumbling. Really, gentlemen who get their living by the necessary infliction of unpleasant noises, and smokes, and steams, and smells, upon people who are forced to live among them because they live, in a certain sense, by them, should be a little more considerate. They should, at least, remember that, although they can leave the town, and live in palatial houses, situated in pleasant spots, "far removed from noise and smoke," where the air is so beautifully different that it makes them a little particular, they leave their own share of the nuisances of the town behind them, to be patiently endured by an immense multitude of people who cannot escape from them,—if they wish to live,—and who, although they are just the people who suffer most from them, are, also, just the people who would be the least heeded if they were to cry out against them.

I am, Sir,
Yours truly,
A SAD COMPLAINT.

A. Ireland & Co., Printers, Pall Mall, Manchester.