The Express.
London, England, 1847-11-17 00:00:00

wieldy and working numbers instead of unwieldy and
non-working numbers, uniform in plans instead of
discordant, alike in powers instead of different, it
would still be impossible that the sewerage of the
metropolis should be efficient without the addition of
a central element to the present federal associations.
The seven must be combined into one, which may
superintend the operations of each commission with
reference to the convenience and necessities of all, and
exercise a vigilant control over every branch of the
administration of every separate board. The report of
the committee appointed by the Marylebone vestry
to inquire into the sanitary state of that district
strikingly illustrates the defects of our sewerage system.
No fewer than 280 streets And ways in the parch are
found to be without proper sewerage, while that of a
gnat portion of the remainder is defective and incom-
plete. The formation of cesspools, we further learn
from the report, has been for a long series of years.
absolutely forced on the public by the absurd practice
on the part of the sewer commissioners of preventing
any drain from a privy being laid into a sewer. The
commission, under which this sapient prohibi-
tion was long enforced, is that of Westminster.
Its powers extend over 20 parishes, including
60,000 assessable premises. Its members are 220
in number, of whom 130 have taken the oath
of office, and from 10 to 30 attend ordinary
courts. This commission, under its own construction
of the law, has no power to build new sewers. They
may, it is true, carry old ones on. But, if any un-
lucky street is planned out of the line of the existing
sewers, unsewered it must remain, within the limits
of the Westminster Commission. Yet the Tower
Hamlets Commission, with the same act, contrive
to build new sewers. They do so by a fiction under
which their Westminster brethren are too high-
minded to take shelter. The Westminster sewers are
built without any apparatus or facilities for flushing.
A large average of them, therefore, require cleansing
by band, at once a filthy and expensive operatiox.
The commissioners complain that they have no power
to compel drainage into their sewers. They should not
forget that it is not oolong since they forbade it. Even
now, permission to drain into a sewer is made a
matter of privilege, only to be enjoyed on the owner
or occupier paying a certain sum towards the ex-
penses of the sewer, for frontage, as it is called. The
bigoted adherence of the Westminster Commission
to the old upright-sided form of sewer has involved
the rate-payers in an increased expense of not less
than 66,669/. for the last tea years, taking the com-
missioners' own estimate of the length of sewerage
constructed during that time. Nor should we be
justified, in this sketch of the Westminster Commis-
sion, in omitting that memorable example of their
management, the case of the King's College Scholars'
Pond sewer, as given by Mr. LEALIE himself, one of
the commission:—

It appears that the then existing line of sewers for this
district was in 1807 minutely surveyed by John Ronnie,
E q , civil engineer, who reported that it was not only laid
down in so irregular a direction, but 90 imperfectly executed,
in such bad repair, and had so bad an Initial' into the
Thames, that it would only be wasting money to attempt to
render it perfect; and Mr. Rennie lays down a plan by
which this witness thinks the drair.age of this important
district would base been complete. But instead of adopting
Mr. Rennie's plan, the commissioners set to work to repair
the old sower which Mr. Rennie had condemned, though
the report of their own surveyor contains the following re-
markable words:—" Beggii.g it may be understood that I I
am moot perfectly convicted of the superior advantage of
Mr. Rennie's plan, I now proceed, in obedience to the &Tee.'
tinns I have received, to consider what alterations will be re-
quired in the existing sewer." Notwithstanding the cow
demnation of this sewer by both their professional advisers,
and after this official condemnation of it, the commissioners
have actually expended upon it nearly two hundred thousand
pounds ! Thus the entire length of the sewer being 16,522
feet, they have spent upon a small portion of it, namely,
upon 5.233 feet, the sum of 70,104 f. 17a. 6d.; and of the
portion noun which this amount of money hasbeen expended
it is stated that it is at the present moment an open unco-
vered sewer (with the exception of 1,009 feet recently covered
in by Mr. Cubitt at his own expense), " with en outlet so
bad, that the water is penned back during a contiderable
period (six hours) of each tide ; a most disgraceful nuisance
in a great metropolis." On the remaining part of this con-
demned line the commissioners have spent the further sum
• •

of 100,0001, and upwards ; and with this result, that the very
evils of this sewer which existed prior to the expenditure
upon it of a si,gle shilling of this money, stiU exist in their
full force.

---
The same commissioner gives other equally instruc-
tive examples of the proceedings of the body to
which he belongs:
The oommissioners purchase for their office a house, the
property of a deceased commissioner, allowing individuals of
their body, having .a personal or family interest in the sale,
to manage Me affair. They pay for this house, 6,0001. pur-
chase-moner ; and they spend upon it in repairs the further
sum of 4,9031. 3s. Id., though from the reports of the two
surveyor* appointed to value the premises it appears that
their sworn valuation, 4,5001., amounted to very little more
than the sum expended on repairs and alterations alone.
" The house," says Mr. Leslie " was purchased of the family
of a deceased commissioner for 5,000!., it cast to repair and fit
it for the purpose of the commission, including 1481. 12s. 6d.
interest on the tradesmen's accounts, and also including
2191. Is. lOd. law charges, 4.9031. 31. Id. ; making the total
charge to the public for that office within a fraction of
10,000/. The tradesmen who were employed, and received
an amount of nearly one-half of the sum expended in re-
pairs and alterations, appear to have been upon the juries at
that period." Further, these commissioners have recently
executed on the Ranelagh line, near the Bayswater-road,
what they call a diversion of the sewer, 1,167 ft. 9 in. in length,
at an:expense of 3,4711. 10s. Old., a work which in a short
time after its completion is discovered to be in 110 ruinous a
state as to require an almost entire re-construction. Still
more rec•ntly another failure of a sewer in the same district
kis been announced, built by the same contractor, and under
the same clerk of the works ; this new sewer requiring to be
reconstructed for the length of 240 feet, at an estimated
expense of 3601. It appears, moreover, that some of the
commissioners, being contractors for the works, have suc-
ceeded in introducing a sliding scale, which continues to the
present time, by means of which the lower the price pat in
the contract as the foundation of the prices therein stated,
the larger will be the amount paid to such contractor—a

plan which seems to have originated with a commissioner-
contractor, and to have been approved by an architect or
surveyor-chairman. And with such suocess do these com-
missioners watch over the strict execution of the contracts,
that in an instance specified, while they have been careful to
save the public about 301. on the number of bricks, they have
at the same time allowed the public to loft about 1,000/. on
the digging. " These," says Mr. Leslie, " are about the sums
upon these two items of which I now give many of the de-
tails, upon which a loos has been incurred. It may altoge-
ther amount to about 1,5001. It would be a work of very
considerable labour to make out all the details ; bat the
above calculations will afford some idea of the pecuniary
low from the carelessness (to say the least of it) with whi:h
these tenders and contracts were made."

It would be unfair to leave such admirable illustra-
tions of the present sewerage system to the seldom
disturbed repose of the Blue Book.
We are glad that the Marylebene report has
directed attention to the working of the Westminster
commission in that parish. Great abuses are best
encountered singly. The existing sewerage commis-
sions, if once severed from their unnatural and unholy
alliance with the parochial cause, cannot stand the
attacks even of a session. It is hard, it must be con-
fessed, that the blow should come from Marylebone,
the Switzerland of Bumblcdom, whose guardians de-
fied the three GESLERS of Somerset-house, and refused
to bow down to the circular of 1839, or whatever
other document may beet represent the hated hat of
the Austrian governor.
The sewerage. commissions have ranged up along-
side of the partisans of local self-government They
have joined in the cry of " centralisation," being
themselves creations or centralisation under its most
pernicious form. Local self-government rejects them.
It is hopeful to see that humbug turned inside out, at
all events.

Tne systematic injustice of which our tropical colo-
nies, and all connected with them, with so much
reason complain, has in no small degree been entailed
upon them by their own unwise policy. Wilfully
shutting their eyes to the fact, that long before the
passing of the reform bill, public opinion was always
omnipotent in this country in the long run, and that
ministers were compelled to govern in the sense of the
community, they contented themselves with courting
the favour of governments, and overlooked the Fe-
veiling opinions and wishes of British society. By
servile compliance with ministers, and by secret ne-
gotiations with Downing-street, they laboured to
avert all changes which threatened, or seemed to
threaten, their interests. And their success has
been exactly what all who persist in such a
policy must expect. Ministers were generally found
willing to befriend them so long as they could do it
without injuring themselves; but is no instance did
they scruple to throw the West Indians overboard
with bag and baggage, so soon as the tottering
balance of parliamentary parties seemed to render
this expedient.
Even yet, though the West Indians are in most
instances far from cordial to whiggish or reforming
of - of

ministries, they seem unaware ~ the necessity ,
conciliating public opinion. They despise, or affect to
despise, the public, u not understanding their affairs,
and, instead of seeking to make them intelligible to
it, persist in appealing to ministers, who themselves