The Express.
London, England, 1847-11-12 00:00:00

of gold. The nines would simply remedy the im-
providence of Joins BOLL by converting him into a
Spaniard.
The Spaniard, or the commercial man of any na-
tion in the same grade of civilisation, knows but two
uses of money. He either beards it, or lends it at
heavyi usury to those from whom he can command a
y return. This is the capitalist that suits the
predilections of the school we are describing. He
never invests, never fixes his capital, or embarks it in
any speculation, except, perhaps, in mining ; the
gambling and hazardous nature of which investment
has charms for the solemn but enthusiastic Spaniard.
The English commercial man is precisely the
reverse of this. lie has a dislike of coin, as the moat
unproductive shape of capital. To get rid of it, to
invest it, to fix it, has been his constant effort for cen-
turies. And the result of that continued effort we
see in the wealth of the land,in the fertility of its soil,
the extent, number, and utility of its buildings, the
majesty of its public works, its modes of communication,
its fleets, its factories, its forges—all the result of
sinking capital, of casting it away like manure over
the lend. The worst times for the Englishman, the
most irksome and miserable state for him, is when he
knows not what to do with his coin, when he is rich
inthe estimation of the Times school—when he has no
use for his money, but to run begging any and every
one to give him even a fraction of interest for the use
of it. In times such as these the Englishman is apt to
lose his patience and his wits, and to fling his money
into any foreign lap. The country has never lost
really by over-investment.

SELF-GOVERNMENT, we have often said, is Ter.), apt
to grow into selfish government. Parochial ulcer.
ruptibles clamour against the assertion. Doubt-
less they are very self-denying, self-sacrificing
bodies—whether they call themselves guardians, or
select vestry, or commissioners. They have an abso-
lute mania for sustaining the toils of parish govern-
ment gratis. They form a legion of unpaid Her-
culeses, who are never happy but when up to their
knees in the Augean stable They delight to do
everybody's business, and to be abused into the bar-
gain. And all without fee or reward! Who can
grudge such parochial patriots an odd bit of patronage
or an occasional dinner? It is well that the favoured
public, which benefits by these self-imposed duties and
unrewarded labours, should now and then learn the
extent of their obligations. Such heroes should not
want a chronicler. We have discharged the histo-
rian's duty, from time to time, for want of a
worthier. We are anxious that, in these days of
ingratitude and unbelief, the machinery of self-
government should not be dismantled without every
possible publicity being given to its ways and work-
ings. In this spirit we would invite our readers to
devote a few minutes' attention to the Tower Hamlets
Sewerage Commission, as it appears in the discharge
of its odorous and onerous functions. Such commis-
sions claim to be parts of the great system of
self-government, because they are appointed, sot
by the rate-payers, but by the LORD CHAN-
CELLOR. So that the name self-government,
in this instance, must be understood to refer not
to the rate-payers who contribute the money,
but to the commissioners who distribute it. The

sewerage commission is self-governing, inasmuch as
the members of it have every possible facility for
taking care of number one.
We choose the Tower Hamlets commission as an
example of the class, for more reasons than one. In
the first place, it has under its control the sewerage
of some of the most miserable and unhealthy parts of
London. In the second place, the first number of the
new Journal of Public Health gives us a minuter de-
tail of its working than we can generally obtain of
the operations of similar bodies. Sewerage commis-
-1 sioners are modest, and love to do their good works
lin secret. The population whose sewerage is super-
intended by the Tower Hamlets Commission exceeds,
300,000. The district it extends over is bounded on
the west by a line running from the Tower along
Shoreditch to Stoke Newington, oa the north and
east by the river Lea, on the south by the Thames.
These boundaries include within them the muddy
tracts of Stepney, Limehonse, and the purlieu of
the London Docks, the squalor of Spitalfields, the
frowsiness of the Minories, the beggary of Beth-
nal-green, and the multifarious stinks, sinks,
cesspools, and slaughter-houses of Whitechapel.
Their domain is traversed by alleys, of which
IRosemary-lane is a fair type, homes of fever, and a
sort of depot from which the disease is supplied to
the adjacent districts at various strengths. Any pas-
senger by the Blackwell or Eastern Counties Hallway
may catch a bird's-eye view of the realm of the
Tower Hamlets Commission, and the manners of its
inhabitants. Within this highly-favoured locality
are to be found scores of such places as Lamb's-fields,
with its 300 square feet of putrefying matter, the car-
buretted-hydrogen gas bubbling on the surface, and
pestilence exhaling into the open windows of a row
of new houses, within ten feet of this ornamental
sheet of water. Nor are there wanting many squares
like the appropriately-named Pleasant-place, its
centre made up of swine-pens and dung-hills, and its
skirts garnished with overflowing ordure. For a
sample of its courts take Newton's-rents, in Stepney,
with its six one-roomed houses on either side, each with
its two feet of backyard, its open privy and dust-bin, the
grating in the centre of the court leading to a drain
always stopped up, and overflowing into a little lake
of putrid mud ; where the scavenger never enters, the
court being private property, and eminently blessed
by self-government; where no water is laid on (the
nearest pump being half a mile off ), and the tenants
when asked how they get a supply of that useful
article reply, " God knows—we beg, borrow, or steal
it." Such is Newton's-rents, built two years ago, its
upper works self-governed by the proprietor, its
under-ground arrangements superintended by the
Tower Hamlets Commission of Sewers. There are
also within the range of the same commission many
profitable yards for the confection of patent manure
from night-soil, blood, and nitric acid, not to speak of
countless glue, gut, and tripe manufactories, bone-
boilers' and.knackers establishments, and similar pub-
lic conveniences, in which animal matter is stored or
used in various stages of putrescence.
Such is the domain of the Tower Hamlets com-
mission.

We must now exhibit the constitution and work-
ing of the commission.
It consists of about 240 individuals, of whom not
more than 30 attend to the business of the board, and
over these the committee, consisting of 18, are omni-
potent. So self-government dwindles from govern-
ment; of the parish by the parishioners, first to go-
vernment by the 240, and then to government by the
30, and then to government by the 18. It is be-
coming obviously more and more sell-ish in character
at each remove. If we could trace it further we
should probably come upon the DALAI LAMA himself
—the Lotus XIV. of the commission, with his " L'etatil
c'eet moi!"—“ self-government" in person, as embodied
in some one master spirit of the committee, who rules
the 18, who rule the 30, who rule the 240, who
rule the 300,000.
To see the committee at work, we most look to
their accounts. Of late years it has been difficult to
persuade the modesty of the 18 to open these records
of their self-denying labours to the grateful rate
payers. But they are accessible from 1831 to 1837.
During that period, out of every 100/. of sewer rate
paid by the public, 5:11. went in works, while 47/.
was expended in management. Some of the items
exhibit very strikingly the marvellous industry of
the commission. In Upper Limehouse the expense of
works for cleansing is 2/. 15s. 6d.; expenses of work-
ing the commission, 64/. 17s. 9d. In Hackney Brook
Level, expense of works, 268/. 15s. Bd. ; of working
the commission, 3941. 2s. 4d. In the Tower-la
Level, 171. 19s. Ad. goes for works; 3111. 19e. 2d. for
the expenses of the commission. Nothing can more
clearly prove the extraordinary nature of the com-
mission's services to the rate-payers. They expend
3111. worth of care and trouble to 17/. worth of sewerage
work. Common men would have reversed the proportion.
It is as if Messrs. STLLTZ were to send in an account
of 71. for a coat, made up of 11. materials and 6/. work.
All depends on the artist. The Tower Hamlets Com-
missioners are first-rate artists. The price proves it.
The commission Is active in constructing new
sewers. The jury who survey the ground when a
new sewer is to be made, or an old one altered, is
called "a dining jury." This jury walk over the dis•
trice for a day or two, accompanied by the surveyor
and his clerk. They listen and respond to the former
gentleman's remarks on the weather, and their devo-
tion to this onerous duty is rewarded by a dinner at
the London Tavern, or some equally well-reputed
hoetelrie. We are happily enabled to furnish a bill for
a commission dinner given on some such occasion at the
West India Dock Tavern. It deserves a niche among