Colored News. — London, England, 1855-09-08 00:00:00

;! t 11,111!.. 'llk • • • lo ' If splen untries, I" N _ NED r+l ;, ~'l f rr MN r THE COLORED NEWS. STREETS OF LONDON. riglllll " • 1 • fig I I WMIIIIIIIII 0111 [SEPTEMBER 8, 1855. P' AIIPMNIM Mtt h 10! u - .11 ies. Y .on bete here is no city i portance ; its improvement. where do auth med as a matte mdred years old wants of mode !re now prevail sted in the thi nrr, too ! If th em ; and if their y government, an C contempt. St ;tropolis to set thi ,t nobody has ar. Less we get hold not very likely, t Blit this tir rse of traffic in t iroughfares were Is of mortality y are like now, We ent signalised hi e denser part Of rged with doubl Lnon Street, only corpor phantom remain e; and it i 6 needl ind thi: old yor at least !t, let us no* . eon London the world ry greatn( of pride, t} How odd effected all truth were lege antiquat attention ad everythir. there is no want of desire in the ; but such is the everlasting bustle r life, and the struggle for money— ;pare on public business. And so, iscience-stricicen authorities, which will go on much as usual—for a OW be very long. Every year, from ,11d extension of commerce, the con zts becomes greater. If certain leading . enough when the population within the . a million and a half, it may be fancied whr with a population of two million- ny time to lo old way in that gr mayoralty 1 London. \l7 ho more er Is, head a and a half. at arterial thoroughfare, Ludgate day, is really frightful—an utter )es that the last lord mayor would by a decided move for opening up 'e thought he was the man for such at trifles. But he, like his prede air without immortalising himself. iterprising ? Will he, apart from lifelike movement to render the This new and e to St. Paul's Occupied a far into the Churchyard) his street is, and greatly a a certain sense it only heapsides instead of one, No doubt, this extC long been contemplated. Sixteen or twenty years ago, the city somebody, bought the old Fleet Prison, and pulling it down, the site ready for street operations. There, till this day, however, the site lying useless—a good number of thousands sunk, as it wer, for nothing. Some houses about the Cheapside end of Paternoste, Row and Newgate Street have likewise been pulled down, and their sites left a waste, for no particular purpose that we can see but to furnish desirable boarding for bill• stickers. The plan in cogitation, we have been told, is to clear away the whole of the north side of Paternoster Row, and then re-build it at a suitable distance back, so as to form the beginning of the new central extension. Carried out effectively, the projected street would at once take a large portion of the western-bound traffic of Cheapside from Ludgate Hill, and the daily choking up of that unfortunate aorta be relieved. What a blessing, also, would such an improvement effect in clearing out the abominations of Newgate-market, which no city but Lon don would have tolerated till these later times ! A grand scheme this central thoroughfare, any way it can be viewed, and we only wish we saw it realised. The expense, however, as is generally imagined, would be unendurable. We do not quite agree in thinking this a valid excuse for civic indolence Looking to the enormous sums at which building ground has been sold in Cannon Street West—the site of one edifice being disposed of, as is said, at a ground-rent of £1,200 per annum—and looking to the similar success of Regent Street, we apprehend that much of the outlay would be repaid by sales of land for new buildings. Sunnf.;,,,,. however, that there was a shortcoming from this department, on what better object, we should like to know, could the funds of the city be employed ; or for what could a certain rate on property be more properly levied ? The public, it is clear, would be the re cipients of the benefit, and on the public must the burden fall in some form or other. At all events, it is surely time that the street extension in question, along with other improvements incident to this important change, should be entered upon with as little delay as possible. It is almost needless to say, that those resident or carry ing on business in London are not alone concerned in this renova tion of a dense and inconvenient section of the metropolis. All who visit London are equally, if not more, interested in seeing effected so very desirable and long looked-for an improvement. 100,000 t rashly dray and Puri . is, the hich iii frjeic t of par London i And to mai. put together r planned tty ob ommu- like it for size, wealth, and general making it unwieldy and backward ere is another reason for its inertia. lo tenaciously to old usages. On the latthe forms of procedure were six it seems, when reforms of one kind over the country in reference to the iat in the metropolis of the empire, same modes of civic goverment as a boast of the known, the people of London do ted absurdities—they don't think of s called to the subject, they talk of ag belonging to it, with something lscher lorl of Guildhall as in the days of ,nything more about it. Reverting THE UNFINISHED STREET Before we talk of " The Unfinished Street" it is necessary that every one should distinctly understand what is meant by " The Un finished Street," or it would have been much better if " The Unfinished Sireet" had never, never, been begun. We have no thing to do with those long rows of uniform three-storied, and shortly to be " desirable tenements" where thick-limbed Irishmen run up and down tall ladders, and the hammer thunders, and the trowel rings from six in the morning till six at night. There the builder is, with heavy penalties, bound down to complete his worl by a certain day ; and the stacks of yellow bricks and the mound! of grey mortar that half block up the road show that the capital; has faith in his speculation, and looks upon the property as a th' to leave to his children. The Roman cement festoons on the pit' house at the one end, and decorations of the baker's shop other, are brown and wet; whilst one half of the hu ge v , crowns the middle house f ;err bona fide " Unfinished trees iF earns mildewing into whiteness. But the a very different kind of affair, London had many such streets at one time, but they are fast vanish. ing. Railways appear to have a wondrous faculty or creatir habitants—we know they do traffic—and by consequence con demand for houses wherein the new corners may dwell. But E a country town—one which, if inland, has, perhaps, had th luck to lie out of the beaten track of the locomotive—whose gl departed with the days of four•horse coaches and postboys, which is fast falling out of the recollection of all men, except sions' barristers and commercial travellers. Or take a new si rate watering-place, at length surpassed in public favour b 3 younger rival, or robbed of its season attractions by the pros of a popular preacher, or the death or retirement of a still popular physician. Such towns as these now possess the specimens of " The Unfinished Street." There you will see i,ireu branching off from their full-grown brethren, prematurely decayed their d