The Express.
London, England, 1864-10-11 00:00:00

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HAYMARKET.
Erawate. MADEMOISELLE DE BELLEISLE. Yes.‘
Howe and Ferran ; Mesdames Bea*Armand Angel —PRESENTED
AT COURT. Mesas. Ifueksivoe. Rogers, and Braid Mesdames
Snowdon, OHMS, and MIL —And BACCHUS AND =ADEL

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THIP tramps. BORN TO PRI
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And TEM STR EFTS OF LONDON. Meson. Vining, J. W. Bay,
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Mn.IL Lanka; Mures Barnett and 01,f121111.

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HIGH WATER AT LONDON-BRIDGE
TEll DAT ilandag. 9h. 66cs....Afternoos, 10h. Wm
Tu•Nossow Morning, nh. 13n....Atterh000, 11h. 66m.

LONDON, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1L

AMONG the earliest and best promises given by
Pie Metropolitan Board of Works at its formation
was one, that it would relieve us from the intolerable
and increasing nuisance of the breaking up of our
streets by the companies which supply us with gas
and water. We were fast losing the use of our
thoroughfares. A street wan ceasing to be a place
of traffic, and becoming a mere bed for receiving
the pipes of half a score joint-stock associations.
The ordinary locomotive arrangements of the me-
tropolis were constantly being interrupted at some
point or other, and thrown into confusion. ion
resolved to catch the omnibus on its accustomed
line of travel, and only discovered after half an
hour's unaccountable delay that its route was
diverted, because such and such a gas company
bad taken possession of a particular street ; or you
entered the 'bus unauspicionsly, intending to alight
at a certain door, and were carried for a similar
reason in another direction. With a cab
or a brougham you were in just the same
difficulty. And in a city where time is money
obstructions to free circulation are amongst the
heaviest burdens that can be imposed on the sub-
ject. Another kind of injury, that done to rein-
dents, and especially to tradesmen, by the stoppage
of thoroughfares, is felt by a smaller class, but
affects them with a peculiar intensity. Customers, ,
if not physically blocked out, are effectually re-
pelled in this way from places of business. Retail
trade is conducted for the most part on the as-
'gumption, justified by experience, that in these
days of competition all the arts of attraction are
necessary to gain and keep custom. But to effect
an entrance to a shop before which the engineers
of gas and water companies have thrown up their
earthworks is like getting into a besieged city. It
difficult enough for a man, and ladies will not
run the gauntlet of a throng of excavators, to be
regaled with the emit of newly raised soil, saturated
with the pungent leakage of gas pipes. Parishes
also sustain great loss from the same cause. As
surely as a road is newly made, so surely do the
gas and water companies discover that it is necessary
immediately to destroy it. Oxford-street was
paved not long since at an outlay of more than
24,0001.—a sum which imperfectly represents the
real cost of the road—and in three years the car-
riage way was opened no fewer than 840 times :
in 1861, 279 times; in 1862, 264 times; and
in 1883, 297 times.

The Metropolitan Board of Works, as we have
said, promised to abate this nuisance as fast as
they could : they would endeavour gradually to
give us back our streets and roads for the original
purposes of traffic and locomotion. This they pro-
posed to do by the construction of a sub-way or
passage running along and under each thorough-
fare, large enough to receive the gas and water
pipes supplying the houses on both sides, and
easily accessible at all times by permanent ap-
proaches for the purposes of supervision, exten-
sion, or repair. For the public the immense ad-
vantage of this arrangement is that it puts an end
to the necessity of disturbing the roadway as often
as the pipes require inspection, and it is plain
also that the gas and water companies
themselves must profit by a disposition of the
pipes which, while it preserves to them all the use
they h►ve ever derived from their occupation of
the beds of the streets, saves them the expense of
removing tons of earth whenever they want to get
at their properi.j.. The Metropolitan Board have
carried out their design in the new streets which
they have constructed. King-street, Covent-
garden, and Southwark-street are provided with
subways, and it is proposed to construct similar
subterranean communications under the Thames
Embankment and the new street leading to Jhe
Mansion-honae. We gather, however, from a
speech made at the meeting of the Board on
Saturday that the companies have not shown
themselves ready to make use of the facilities
offered them. Mr. CARPMAKL said, "The great
" water and gas companies had had the earliest
" notice of what the Board intended to do. They
" had had the parliamentary notices, and yet
" never gave the slightest indication of their in-
" tention not to use the subways after they were
" constructed. At present there was nothing to
" prevent the companies from breaking up the
" streets that the Board had made, and the ques-
" tion now was whether the Board should have
" compulsory powers to compel the companies to
" use the subways. He urged the Board to con-
" tinue the construction of subways, and leave it
" to time and public opinion to force the gas and
" water companies to use them."
This reluctance on the part of the gar and water
companies is surprising. We hope that it may be