The Express.
London, England, 1847-12-03 00:00:00

AY EVENING, DECEMBER 3, 1847.

down the
'threshold

dons of sewers. It has, in so m...
great giant of obstruction, who stood
of all effective sanitary improvement.
The LORD CHANCELLOR has already tamed his writs
of sispersedeae. The seven unwieldy, irresponsible,
ignorant, and jobbing nuisances, which mismanaged
the sewerage of the metropolis, are at last got rid of.
The way is open for doing the work, which they
never have done, and never could have done. We
rejoice in this result, as in one to which we have oon-
tributed, from a conviction that it was the one great
condition of real sanitary improvement in London.
The metropolis is the source and centre of example.
What is done in it will sooner or later be done else-
where.
This report furnishes a curious comment on the
letter from a commissioner of sewers lately published
in our columns. It bears out, substantially, every
complaint we made, and negatives, as substantially,
every point he took in defence of the existing com-
missions generally, through the Westminster °manila-
lion in particular.
The seven old sewerage commissions comprised
about 700 persons. There were the strangest names
in the list. The Archbishop of CANTERBURY upheld
the tegis of the church over one. The Duke of WEL-
LINGTON was paraded in the front of another. The
Chief Justice arrayed the dignity of his ermine to
deter all suspicion from a third. These great and
venerable names were used like " man-traps and
spring-guns" to frighten inquiry off the premises.
They were the scarecrows set up to terrify trespassing
suspicion and importunate economy. All this is at an
end. The 700 are reduced to 22. These 22 include
neither empty great names to impose on the public,
nor architects with friends to serve, nor surveyors
with jobs to carry out, nor builders with contracts to
execute—they comprise such men as Lord ASHLEY,
Lord MORPETTI, and Lord EBRINOTON, the noblemen
who have shown the most real zeal and knowledge in
the sanitary cause; physicians, such as Dr. SOUTHWOOD
SMITH= Dr. ARNOTT, economists such as Mr. JOSEPH
HUME, physiologists like Professor Owen', philan-
thropic clergymen like the rector of Spitalfields, and
statists like /Mr. CHADWICK. All the necessary science
and all the useful qualities of business management
are represented in the new body. More than this ;
legal difficulties stood in the way of formally in-
urpsrating the seven different commissions in one.
Pset,ikir efficient and economical action such consolida-
lion was absolutely necessary. It has been effected
by a happy expedient. The same gentlemen have
been appointed commissioners for all the seven com-
missions. Thus the sewerage of the metropolis, with
the exception of the City, will be practically under
the government of one and the same body. It may
be said that these twenty-two are as irresponsible to
the rate-payers as the old seven hundred. As far as
the direct responsibility secured by election
i goes, this
is tree. But it must be remembered that there s not
MO althea) twenty-two who is not committed to the
whole public of England on the sanitary question. They
must do their work, or be shamed for ever. More-
over, they are each and all responsible to a reputation.
Dr. SMITH. cannot countenance a job, nor Lord Mon-
Prut pitchfork a serviceable builder into a snug con-
tract. And they are deprived of the shelter of a
crowd. Of the old commissions, as of the sinners
of old Rome, it might be said :
Defereht unmercia, junctlgne umbone phalange'.
You could not easily put your hand on the jobber, out
of 700. And then the great names are gone under
which the old commissioners used to fly for shelter
from personal charge of public obloquy. Complain-
ants will no longer find the Duke of Wettlnurces's
hundred victories dashed in their teeth, or have their
mouths stopped with—the wig of the Archbishop of
CANTERBURY.
This great change has been effected by the com-
mission, which has just published its report.
But it has not only demonstrated in general the
inefficiency, jobbery, and waste of the old bodies;
Shea laid its finger on the particular errors of their
prosedure. It has shown, not only that they con-
demited sewers which effected the very things which
sewers are intended to obviate, but the means by
which such mischiefs may be obviated for the future.
It has brought out great practical improvements in
the theory of sewerage. It has shown how its ex-
pense may be reduced two-thirds, and its efficiency
increased in far more than this same ratio. It has put
the country in a position to repair past and avoid
future errors.
With this result actually achieved, and this pros-
pect of future results opened, we consider ourselves
justified in our assertion that, practically, this is the
most important sanitary commission that has yet sat
and reported.
The consideration of the report itself we defer till
another, but that the earliest opportunity.

WE have observed, with some surprise, and more
regret, that hitherto scarcely any allusion has been
made, either in or oat of parliament, to one of the
most vexatious and impertinent of the interferences
with the ordinary trade of the country, of which, from
first to last, the present Bank Charter Act is composed.
The discussion has been ample and continuous on the
prejudicial influence exerted by that statute over the
policy of the central banking institution, and over
the great financial focus of the empire, but throughout
the debate the injurious consequences of the same code
of legislation upon the system of provincial banking'aad
provincial circulation seems to have been overlooked.
We by no means underrate the importance of those
greater topicsof the controversy,bat as a matter of daily
facility, as a question of habitual expense, and as an
arrangement which threatens at no distant date to in-
terfere most extensively with the whole scheme of
our country banks, we are quite sure that the regula-
tions of 1844, with reference to the non-metropolitan
notes, call for as cloee:an examination, and deserve as
persevering an exposure.
There are several peculiar reasons why this division
of the investigation should not be left to the care of
those, whom in the first instance it appears most
directly to concern. It is quite true that the body of
country bankers are the class of persons whose in-
terests have been most obviously invaded, and who
therefore may be supposed to have the strongest in-
ducements to seek the alteration of a law towards
which they can entertain only sentiments of hostility.
The country bankers, as a body, do entertain these
sentiments : they have a strong opinion in opposition
to the legislative dispensation under which they have
been compelled to act. But there are a variety of
causes which keep in check the natural expres-
sion of their dislike and their discontent. At this
moment especially, it is in the highest
unlikely, that they would feel it wise to oomt gem:
any agitation which might suggest a doubt of
their perfect ability to meet the demands of the crisis.
That jealous conservation of unimpeached credit,
which is the governiag maxim with every sound
banker, would effectually preclude them from enter-
ing upon a course aterespicuous remonstrance against
the existing law. Collectively, there may be the
most prima amity of opinion throughout the
whole ohm, but the single consideration that to move
lag, or to exhibit any distress under the influence of
• saris common to all who pursue the same profes-
sion, would be instantly interpreted to indicate in-
adequate resources, will be quite sufficient to relieve
the legislature, at least for a time, from the appear-
ance of the country bankers among the list of sup-
pliants for parliamentary relief.
In the whole catalogue of impertinent inter ned-
dlings with the trade of the country from which our
jurisprudence is only beginning to abstain, we do not
believe there is any instance in which more annoy-
ance and inconvenience is occasioned for the attain-
ment of so problematical a good, as in the case of the
interference with the country circulation. Theoreti-
cally, the arbitrary maximum was placed upon the
volume of that circulation, because it was alleged to
be subject to an extravagance of irregularity in its
rise and fall, utterly at variance with any general
rule or certain principle—because the issuing bankers
had the means of emitting as many of their notes as
they thought proper—and because, as a body, they
did not regulate their business of issue in accordance
with the foreign exchanges. Now it is not too mach I
to say that as far as the most circumstantial evidence
and the most exhaustive argument can settle any
question, it is quite certain that however essential to
the completeness of a theory, there was not one of
these grounds upon which, as a practical matter, any
measure of legislation could be successfully defended.
Nay, so complete has become the demonstration
of the precise negative of each of these theoretical
' poetulate..-so undeniable is the evidence that. the
country circulation observes, strictly, certain periodi-
cal fluctuations in amount, so regular as to indicate
the existence of a fixed law of variation—that the
country bankers have not the power of ad libitum
issue ; and that it is in the highest degree undesirable