The Express.
London, England, 1863-12-17 00:00:00

NEW RAILWAY PROJECTS.

THE STREET TRAFFIC OF LONDON.

In laying out any plan for new railway commu-
nications in the metropolis the great object to be
attained is to relieve the streets of traffic. Its,
therefore, desirable to consider of what the street
traffic of London consists.

There are the passenger traffic and the goods
traffic : the first, pedestrian and vehicular ; the
last, entirely vehicular. The passenger traffic is
DO doubt by im tks largotwoioLmocueim th•
largest share of space, although there are certain
looalities and certain hours of the day in which the
goods traffic offers the greatest proportion of
obstruction.

First, as regards the passenger traffic. The pas-
senger traffic of the most crowded thoroughfares of
London consists of persons resorting to the great
centre of business in the City from the various
suburbs. It has been ascertained that the number of
persons who enter the City of London daily amounts
to an average of about 700,000, of which number
about 170,000 avail themselves of about 58,000 vehi-
cles. The bulk of these 700,000 persons enter the
City in the morning and leave it in the afternoon.
The larger proportion of them keep in their counting-
offices, warehouses, shops, and other places
of business during the greater portion of the day,
but it may be taken that one-fourth, or perhaps
one-third, of the whole number move about the
streets of the City, from one place of business to
another, during business hours, thus keeping up
the constant current of passenger traffic which
crowds the City thoroughfares.
The great object to be attained by new metropo-
litan railway communications is to relieve the
streets as much as possible of the vehicles which
are used for passenger conveyance. It can scarcely
be doubted that the great bulk of the cabs and a
very large proportion of the omnibuses are employed
for the purpose of conveyance to and from the railway
stations. If our streets are to be relieved of auy of
these vehicles, it must, therefore, be by lines of rail-
way which would unite the different stations within
the metropolis, so as to enable passengers to get
from one part to another without passing through
the streets to so great an extent as is now necessary.
It is very clear that this object would not be in auy
degree accomplished by an outer circle railway
girdling the metropolis outside the present stations.
The North London Railway circles the northern
and eastern sides of the metropolis. What has
been the experience of the North London ? Carry-
ing an enormous number cf passengers from the
City to the northern suburbs by its circular line,
it nevertheless finds itself called upon to make a
direct entrance into the heart of Loudon from the
north, which it is now constructing from the Kings-
land-road to Bishopsgate. This fact demonstrates
that the railways needed for metropolitan traffic are
railways within the metropolis, which will com-
municate with the direct lines which lead out of the
metropolis. To clear the streets people must be
enabled to get to and from the great resorts of
business with as little necessity as possible for
passing through the streets. And as an outer
circle railway would in no degree facilitate this
object, we may take it that, as regards passenger
traffic, an outer circle railway would not answer
the chief objects which have to be secured in pro-
moting new metropolitan communications.
Second. As to goods traffic. The House of
Lords appear to imagine that the goods traffic
which passes through the streets of the metropolis
merely consists of merchandise passing from the
north to the south of the river Thames, and rice
versa. Now, this is a mistake. There is, compare-
' lively speaking, very little traffic in merchandise
or minerals passing through the London streets
from the northern to the southern railways. We
had occasion recently to show how very small was
the goods traffic on any part of the Brighton line of
railway. The carriage of all their goods and mine-
rals amounts to less than 50,0001. a year over their
whole system ; and of course only a very small pro-
portion of that traffic is derived from or passes to
places north of London. The South Eastern, in
the same way, has a comparatively small goods
traffic. The article hops is probably the principal
article of merchandise carried on that line, and
nearlyall the hops it brings to London &repurchased
by the hop merchants of Southwark, and are stored
in the great hop warehouses on the south side of the
Thames. Mr. Eborall, the traffic manager of
the South Eastern Railway, told the select
committee of the House of Lords that
there was very little communication indeed between
the South Eastern and the Northern lines of
railway ; the bulk of the goods exported from the
north of England to France, and other countries
on the Continent, finding their way across the
Channel by steamers to Dieppe and Dunkirk from
Hull and Grimsby, and other eastern and north-
eastern ports. As to minerals for the southern
districts, not • ton of them passes through the
streets of London. They ant passed from the
northern on to the southern lines by way of the
West Loudon Railway and the Kensington-bridge ;
and when the Blackfriars Railway-bridge is open
they will also, no doubt, be passed from the Great
Northern on to the London, Chatham, and Dover
line by that communication. Practically, there-
fore, the Lords' Committee was entirely in error in
imagining that any large proportion of the goods
traffic in the streets of London is traffic pairing
directly from the railways on the north to those on
the south of the Thames, or rice weal.
London is the great depot of the world for foreign
and colonial merchandise ; and she is also, though
in a less degree, a great depot for British manufac-
tures and productions. The foreign and colonial mer-
chandise reaches Loudon by the River Thames,
and is stored in the warehouses of the different
Jocks. The Victoria Docks and the East and West
India Docks have communication with all the rail-
ways of England by lines extending to every one of
their warehouses and wharves. From these docks,
therefore, nut an ounce of produce sent from
London to the provinces passes through the streets.
Sixth has not been hitherto the case with the
London and St. Katharine's Docks. The Blackwell
Railway is now being extended into those docks,

[TWOPENCE

but up to the present time they have established
no communication with any railway, and the con-
sequence has been that the merchandise warehoused
iu th.me docks has had to be carted through the
streets to the various railway stations, or barged
up the river to the goods station established by
the Great Western Company at Brentford. This
it is which causes Fencharch-street and other
streets in the neighbourhood to be so crowded with
traffic, and it is an evil which it is most desirable
to remedy. From the various river-aide wharves
and granaries ever} thing, also, has to be carted ;
but as no railway can very well touch those ware-
houses, the cartage which blocks Thames-street
and Eastcheap on one aide of the river, and Shad-
Thames and Toole)-street upon the other, is not
likely to be largely affected by any improved cos•
'unifications.

In addition to the foreign, colonial, and Irish
produce, which is all warehoused in the docks or on
the river side, there is the produce of our own
manufacturing districts, which is warehoused in
the City for the convenience of London and pro-
.Jrineig pnveleaseva. Oates', woollens, silk leak
ironmongery, hardware goods, and cutlery, are all
warehoused in the district between St. Paul's.
churchyard and the Mansion-house, and between
Fore-street and the Thames. These goods are
brought to London for examination and purchase.
They are carted from the different railways to the
different wholesale City warehouses, and are
carted away again from those City warehouses to the
addresses of the different purchasers. Unless Lou-
don is to cease to be a depot for British manufac-
tures, it is difficult to see how this is to be avoided.
Retailers cannot, and do not, as a rule, make
their purchases by sample. When they do so, of
course goods can be sent to them direct from the
manufecturingdistricts without passing through the
metropolis at all. But the largest class of pur-
chasers require delivery of their goods at once, and
cannot wait until they are expressly made or pro-
cured for them from samples. They buy when they
want the articles, and not in anticipation of • want
which may not arise.
But although the cartage of foreign and colonial
produce from the docks and wharves to the railway
stations is considerable, and although the sale of
articles of British manufacture iu London causes
much traffic through the streets from and to the
railway stations, yet the bulk of the goods traffic in
the streets of London is of a class which has nothing
to do with existing railway communications. By
far the greater proportion of the vehicles conveying
goods which crowd the Loudon streets are vehicles
conveying goods from the docks, and wharves, and
wholesale warehouses to the retailers' shops, and
from the retailers' shops to the houses of the dif-
ferent consumers within the metropolis itself. The
supply of three millions of people cannot be accom-
plished without an enormous amount of street
traffic. There must be intercourse between the
great markets and the shops, and betwees the shops
and the houses of the customers. Butchers' carts,
bakers' carts, brewers' strays, grocers' carts, linen-
drapers' carte, warehousemen's carts, green-
grocers' carts, and all the endless variety of
vehicles that appertain to the shopocracy of
London, constitute the bulk of the vehicular
traffic of the metropolis. No railway system can
largely affect this class of traffic. If any can do so,
it
must obviously be an inner, and not an outer
circle of railway. Every shopkeeper wants to carry
from market or warehouse to his shop door, and
from his shop door to the door or area gate of his
customer. No railway can accomplish this, but
least of all a railway that circles London with a
diameter of some nine miles. No outer circle rail-
way, for example, could prevent the driving of
cattle through the streets of London to and from
the Cattle Market, which it is universally felt to
be desirable, as far as possible, to prevent. In fact,
the more extended the circle the less the butchers
would be likely to use it.
If an outer circle railway were used at sll for the
purpose of conveying traffic out of London, it is
quite clear that its effect would be to crowd the
main arteries of communication more than they
are crowded at present. An outer circle railway
eonld only receive its traffic at particular points—
say, for instaucce, at some one eastern and some
one western station. If it concentrated its traffic
at those two points it is obvious that all the routes
to such points would be thronged with the traffic
endeavouring to reach them, and London would
practically suffer from that which is universally
regarded as inconvenient and undesirable—to wit,
a general or central terminus. On the other hand,
if the traffic was not thus concentrated, but was
received upon the outer circle, through the means
of the existing stations, how would the outer circle
in any way relieve the streets of traffic
These various considerations as to the street
traffic of London will show at once the fallacy of sup-
posing that either passengers or goods can be carried
round London without entering it. It is of the very
essence of the trade of this great commercial metro-
polis that both men and goods should enter it, and
I should not be carried round it ; that they should be
able to get to their places of business by the shortest,
best, and moat expeditious route ; and that they
should be able to buy and sell, and to handle the
commodities which they buy and sell. It is all
very well for noble lords, who know little or nothing
about trade, to talk of the convenience of sending
goods round London. If they knew more of the
requirements of trade they would probably have
felt more strongly the necessity of promoting that
trade within London, by which the commerce, not
only of England and of Europe, but of the whole
world, is regulated and governed.

THE PERCHASE or ARTON- PA/lE.-11e Bir-
mingham " Peoples' Park," %boat the payment for which
NORM amphorae revelations have recently bee n made. was
made the subject of discussion at • meeting of the town
oouncilnf that townon Tuesday. A longdiscurion tout place,
several geotlemeu contending that if there was any honour
in the town, or any sense of it, the town council is
booed to purchase the perk, after the pledge given by
the mayor in 1858 ; that gentleman having, than is so
doubt, acted bowl fide, and the council having shown
thew coalidesee is his acts by having these times sleeted
him mayor. A resolution was moved to the effect that the
question be referred heck to the Baths and Park Closamitre
to take into cousideration any proposal made for the pur-
chase of Aston-park, Its, but inasmuch as there is nothing
more to inquire into. this looks very like purposing the
affair sine as. It was moved by Mr. Peyton, that the coun-
cil do take such seer as ere necessary for the purchase of
Asses-perk. This was lost, eleven gentlemen only voting
for it, and forty for the resolution to refer the matter back
to • committee. In these circumstances it seems not im-
probable that the park will pass back to the old
cprietors. If such is the care it will bring lasting des.
dit upon the town. and can be regarded in no other
light than that of an affront to royalty itself.
A meeting was bold on Tuesday in the Town-
hall, Waterford, for the rupees of erleevourieg to proms
a redaction of the taxation of the onuniry. The attoadanesi
was an soar vas. Mr. Joseph Fisher, Alderman Denny,
sad other spoken, entered into comparative statistics to
show that Ireland was too heavily taxed as compared with
Great Britain. A committee was appointed to prevorci
petition to parlisonnit paying tor redress.

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A. W. MILES begs most respeethilly to announce that Ms
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TO 001121f.SPONDICiT8.
6dverldsenteats tateeded for • The ILepress" Loudon Teenier
paper. IDitat be at the 00100, 10. Louverle4Lreel, by Tw4
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LONDON, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 17.

THE picture of " lame-footed Justice " pur-
suing, and at length overtaking her victim, is
older than HORACE, though no writer, perhaps, ever
expressed the idea with more graphic power. There
is no .sentiment more common among mankind
than that the criminal cannot escape the penalty

of his guilt, however long it may be delayed.
But unfortunately Justice is too often so tardy in
. _.

her movements that before she comes up indigna-
tion at the crime is transformed into pity for
the criminal. The mass of mankind have so

little imagination, awl are so entirely abeorbed in

the thing; before their eyes, that forgetting the

atrocities which roused their horror only a few
weeks before, they can see nothing but the brutal
ruffian who perpetrated them trembling at the
dock and cowering for mercy before tbeJudge. It
is of some consequence to discourage this per-

nicious sentimentality. Nor are there any means
more effectual than to shorten as much as possible

the intervhl between the act of crime and the

punishment of the crimival.

Such promptitude

has a further advantage—it tends directly to
discourage crime. If it were proved by experience,
not only that every crime was certain to be de-
tected, but that detection and punishment
must follow within a day or two, the dream of
Utopia would be realised, for crime would become
impossible. Without the chance of escape no one
would be a criminal, and obviously the more cer-
tain and prompt is the action of the law the leas
opportunity will there be for criminals reaping the
benefits of their audacity.
Of late years it must be admitted that the
acienoe of detection has considerably advanced,
and punishment follows with laudable speed upon
Abe offence, But it may be doubted Whvilog
Justice ever displayed more promptitude in pursuit
than she displayed in the case of the bricklayer,
SAMUEL WRIGHT, who was tried yesterday before
Mr. Justice Bucxnuax, and sentenced to death.
On Sunday morning last, about half-past 4,
Mrs. IRELAND, who slept on the first floor in No.
11, Waterloo-road, was awoke by • thumping
noise overhead, and screaming. She was aware
that a man named WRIGHT and a woman named
MARIAGRERN occupied the room above, where they
seemed to be living as man and wife. But they
always appeared to be on good terms, sod, indeed,
the very night before she had seen them together,
as she described, " very happy and comfortable."
But, roused by the noise, Mrs. IRELAND got up,
struck a light, opened the door, and going up.
stairs met WRIGHT "coming down in his shirt-
" sleeves, which were tucked up, and one of his
" arms covered with blood." " Whatever is the
" matter, Mr. WRIGHT ?" she said ; to which he
answered, "Go and see." She went, and there
in the man's room she found his wife on her hands
and knees with • fearful gash across her throat,
and blood streaming from it. "What lathe matter,
" MM. WRIGHT f " Mrs. IRELAND exclaimed ; to
which the poor creature, in a very feeble voice,
answered, "He has cut my throat." Forthwith
the constable was sent for, and when he arrived
the doctor was called. But by this time the poor
woman was dead.
Even without any further details it is difficult
to conceive the most ingenious advocate, or even
the most infatuated specialist in lunacy, suggesting
a doubt of the man's guilt. But if any such
doubts could exist they would be dissipated by
the conduct of the man at the time, and by the
relations existing between himself and his victim.
The bloody razor was actually found with which
he inflicted the fatal wound. Indeed the man
himself picked it up, saying, " I did it with that."
Nor were those sudden pangs of fear and remorse
which sometimes afflict the murderer wanting.
Mscsera, after assassinating " the gracious
" Dcircaw," exclaimed—
I am afraid to thiok what I have doze,
Look on% again—l dare act.

So this bricklayer, as he stood by his " blood- 1
" boltered " wife, said, " Take me away as
" aeon as possible, I cannot bear to be here any
" longer." According to the statement of
Mrs. lime" she took them for man and
wife because "they lived so comfortably."
But, unless we are misinformed, this was
not so. Though born in a respectable rank of
life and married to one Claw, the poor woman
had fallen into misfortune. Her husband had de-
serted her, leaving her with two children. For a
time she bore up, and managed to support herself
and her family by dressmaking. At length she
cast herself upon the streets. Meeting with Wm=
she agreed to live with him and to share with him
the wages of her shame. It is said they drank and
quarrelled over the division of her gains. It may
well, therefore, be, that in an angry discussion she
threatened violence, or announced her resolution
to leave him. WRIGHT certainly declared that she
had taken up a large knife which lay on the table
and menaced him. At all events, it is most cer-
tain that this man, being in his sober senses, cut
this Unmet of his mistress last Sunday morning.
But on Monday he was before the magistrate,

and within two days—that is, yesterday morning
—he was sentenced to death. _

There are few cases in which this result could
be reached. Most certainly, if any reasonable doubt
could have been entertained, it would have been
the duty, as it is the practice, of the Judge to
postpone the trial, and to assign counsel to the
prisoner. But in the present case this was im-
possible. Not only was the murder committed
within hearing and almost within sight of one of
the inmates of WRIGHT'S house, but the dying
woman bore witness against the man, and he
himself persisted in confessing his guilt. The
Judge had no course but one open, and it was the
course which he followed.