The Express.
London, England, 1862-11-22 00:00:00

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE..

TIM DAY.2llornlag, lb. 501 b.. _Afternoon. V. loos.
To4t°R&M—Morning. la. 35= 2b.

LONDON, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22.

WILL no kind Christian, capitalist, corporation,
or public company do something to relieve London-
bridge from its cruel load of traffic? With all our
enterprise, rates, taxes, and representative bodies,
are we to sit down quietly for another quarter of
a century, say " Dear-a-deary me," and do no-
thing to lighten this over-gorged thoroughfare?
Are we to wait until the struggling crowds, from
excess of numbers, will have to squeeze on to the
narrow pathway as if they were tying to pierce
into the pit of a popular theatre ? Are we to
waituutil they ooze over the sides of the parapets
in their desperate endeavours to reach Southwark
from King William-street, or King William-street
from Southwark? Are we to wait until all carters,
cabmen, and coachmen whose duty calls them over
this fatal bridge, are turned into sour haters of
men and horses, or explosive blasphemers? Have we
aorespcct for breeches-pocket principles—no power
of seeing what is wanted, and what would pay?
Have we no power of calculating an obvious saving
in time and horseflesh, to say nothing of nerves,
temper, and mental wear and tear? Have we no
power of acting on popular wishes, and doing
something which everybody feels ought to be done,
and done at once

When the present London-bridge was opened, in
1831, our metropolitan population was little more
than one-half of our present numbers. We boasted
then of only one hundred and sixty thousand in-
habited houses, and of only about a million and
three-quarters of people. Now we have totted
up, in our last census, more than three hundred
and sixty thousand inhabited houses, and over
two millions and eight hundred thousand inhabi-
tants. These are vast changes, and many other
changes equally vast have kept pace with them,
but Loudon-bridge has remained the same. It
has not expanded an inch to meet the public
growth of thirty years, and it promises to burst
before it is let out in a proper way. It still
strives to fit men who have outgrown its narrow
limits, and succeeds only in pinching theca like the
clothes of childhood.

If we were at all disposed to fill our space with
fancy statistics, we might show the exact number
of carts and horses possessed by this increased popu-
lation. We might arrive at the number of trucks,
the number of cabs and omnibuses, and the num-
ber of vans and waggons required to conduct the
London carrying trade. We might go even deeper
than this, and analyse the loads which are daily
carried over London-bridge, and the cattle which
help to carry them. Without, however, plunging
into many details of this kind, we may support
our arguments with a few round figures. The
management of the London-bridge traffic has been
necessarily reduced to a science which has its
records. The Chief Commissioner of the City
Police is responsible for this overgorged thorough-
fare. Ile has devised a plan to keep the vehicles
crossing it from winding into a hopeless dead
lock, and he has appointed officers to maintain the
working of his system. The position of these un-
fortunate City constables on a wet and muddy day
is something worse than slavery. Their bodies
form a human tramway—so to speak—a
living, breathing, bespattered line, which divides
the whirlpool of vehicles into four tolerably orderly
streams. Tho. heavy traffic flowing both ways is
made to take the two aides near the kerbstones,
and the light traffic flowing both ways has the
middle of the road for its channel. The foot-pas-
sengers, of course, take either pathway, according
to fancy, and take the right or wrong side of that
pathway according to their knowledge or ignorance.
At certain hours of the day, pal iieularly about
ten or eleven o'clock in the morning, when the
full tide of traffic is at its height, few men ever
have courage to cross the roadway of the bridge,
or ever succeed in crossing it, without the skill of

acrobats.
It is not surprising that the Chief Commissioner
of Police should sometimes take an elaborate
account of this traffic, and tell us what con-
stitutes the pushing, perspiring, and sometimes
cursing crowd. Out of the sixty thousand vehicles
of all sizes and shapes poured daily into the City,
through about fifty leading thoroughfares, at least
twelve thousand help to choke up London-bridge
during the twenty-four hours. They cross and
re-cross on the average at least twice each, so that
the account registers snore than twenty-four
thousand daily journeys. They carry in and about
them no less than thirty-five thousand passengers,
who, of course, make seventy thousand journeys,
while quite sixty thousand passengers struggle over
on foot, nissk ing one hundred and twenty daily jour-
neys. Nearly two hundred thousand peoplo thus pass
daily over the bridge—counting as two each pas-