The Express.
London, England, 1862-06-23 00:00:00

THE UNDERGROMID RAILWAY.

The accident arising from the bunting of the
Fleet sewer immediately parallel to the railway
works at Clerkenwell is probably only another
of the many inevitable evils spriuging from
an attempt to tunnel half London with rail-
ways. The brickwork of the sewer may or
may not have been defective, and the stream,
unruly as it generally is during the wet sea-
son at this point, might or might not have burst
its channel ; but one thing is certain, it could not
have undermined a hundred yards of a railway wall,
causing it to fall backwards—a zagged ruin, if the
railway
.wall had not been there. Without wishing
to anticipate the verdict of the jury, who will pro-
bably be called upon to decide the merits of this
case, we imagine that all damage done to the rail-
' way now, or at any future period, by gas pipes,
water pipes, or amen, will have to be borne by
the railway company, who have thought proper to
build on snob dangerous ground.
The scene of the accident, like the scenes of all
great accidents, is rather impressive. The fallen
brickwork represents a mass about equal in extent
and apPearanos to the destroyed sluice at the
Middle-level Drain. The fallen roadway, with the
bent lamp-post and the pavement, looks as if it had
been sucked down by • whirlpooL Without the
lamp-post—the half-destroyed land-mark this
part of the ruin would only be a heap of ordinary
rubbish. Going to the edge of the planking which
overlooks the deep cutting, you see the great shat-
tered wall of yellow bricks leaning against this
treacherous ground, and near the base, just above
the level of the water, you may notice where part
of the walls have snapped off from their foun-
dations, like pieces of broken matchwood. Under
the aide of the roadway still standing, deep down
amongst fallen timbers and pipes, is the black hole
of the Fleet sewer, like a broken artery, pouring
out a thick rapid idiom which finds items?, fiercely
by many windiogs into the railway witting. In this
cutting some 8 feet of sewer water has now col-
lected, in which float a number of planks,
thrown down when part of the shoring gave
way with the brickwork. This flood extends
in a stream tt:isdually decreasing depth
up the tunnel north under Coppice-row
aidßegnine-we as far as Frederick-street,
and not as far as Ring's-crose, according to several
erroneous statements. The incline of this cutting
and tunnel from Frederick-street down to Ray-
street is one foot in a hundred, and the water,
therefore, can never reach King's-cross, even if the
tunnel were filled to the crown of the arch.
Stretching across the gulf in several directions
are the rough brown pipes of the gas companies,
while along the aide runs a broken water main at
the New River, showing part of the web through
which the railroad has to be steered. In the middle
of the muddy pool, standing amongst the floating
timbers, is the large tomb which contains all the bones
and bodies from the aid Clerkenwell pauper burial
ground, which stood near the same spot. A corner
of this tomb has been knocked off by the uplifted
strata, and sufficient damage has been done to it to
excite the imagination of the curious, especially as
one murderer, if not more, is said to be buried
there ; but, sorry as we are at all times to destroy
anything like graphic writing, we have seen no
indications, as reported, of bodies being washed
out by the flood.
The inhabitants of Ray-street who live over the
brokers' and birdcage sellers' shops seem to enjoy
the full view of the ruin as they spoke their pipes
at their windows, sad their friends also seem teems
from many quarters to take tea and enjoy the sight
likewise. The confidence shown by all these poor
people in the shorings which alone save them and
their houses from tumbling headlong into the pit is
something marvellous. The gipsy-like inhabitants
of Fryusgpan-alley and other similar delicious re-
treat& are kept outside the borders of the ruin by a
strong body of police, but the dwellers in Peartree-
oourt have free passes within the barriers, and they
help to swell the crowd of gaping visitors.
The land-slips still continue. On Saturday night
the temporary cut, partly new and partly running
in the line of the old Fleet ditch under the walls of
the once famous Chartist-hall was opened to carry
the sewage from the north side of the broken sewer
to the south side, round the ruin, but without sue-
(less. The damming was washed away, but the
water, basing an outlet through a district sewer,
is not riming in the cutting. The work of diverting
the stream will be resumed to-day. The tide here
rises in the sewer to *considerable height, and one
of the labourers last week caught a very fine eel
while at work at a spot once famous in tradition for
'silver trout.