The Express.
London, England, 1867-10-22 00:00:00

MGM WATIN. AT LONDON BRIM T.

TIM DAT -;i101.1111C-811. 60in 'At. 41m.
to.Komeir—mnihe 100. 2401... Anernoos, 11 h. 3a.

LONDON, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22.

THE appearance of the metropolis at the pre-
sent time is almost that of a city which is under-
going the process of reconstruction. It is impos-
sible to pass from one part of the town to
another without coming in contact with some of
the great works which are doing for London in the
unsystematic manner of Englishmen quite as
much as has been more logically and systematically
done for Paris. On either of the great lines of
thoroughfare between the East and West the dirt
and demolition and apparent confusion through
which we struggle to something better are forced
upon our notice. Along the most northern of
these routes the traffic is diverted at King's-cross
by the new works of the Metropolitan Railway ;
and a little further on a long line of boarding
marks the place where acres of poor houses and
low streets have been swept away, and where the
new Station of the Midland Railway Company is
rising in their place. Along the middle route, the
great works of the Holborn Viaduct and
the new streets connected with it hinder
the traffic they will soon facilitate, and
an unusual sense of width and airiness
soon after the rising of the hill reminds us
that the ancient obstruction of Middle-row has
vanished at last, and that before long the tide of
an unhindered traffic will roll over its site. Along
the most southerly route, the ruinous corners of
Ludgate-hill remind us that the railway which has
bridged that crowded thoroughfare is still a new
thing, though it has become such an everyday con-
venience as to have rendered antiquated the times
when wo did without it ; and beyond Temple-bar
there is a whole city falling into ruin, demolished
apparently by occasional bombardments, or being
removed with the slowness of a Chancery suit, to
make way for the new law courts, which are some
day to be so splendid an ornament to that end of
the city of Westminster. But all these works
together scarcely equal those which " the silent
" highway" of the river presents to notice. Pass-
ing the huge timber structures which form the
scaffolding of the new bridge which is being erected
at Blackfriars, and supply a temporary substitute
for the old one, the white granite line of the
Embankment is now traceable, with only partial
breaks, all along the Middlesex shore to West-
minster-bridge, while on the other side of the
bridge a similar line appears on the Surrey side,
and stretches away in tolerable completeness
beyond the palace at Lambeth. Behind this
embankment and exactly opposite the Houses of
Parliament, but extending in a longer line and
covering perhaps a larger space, are the founda-
tions of the hospital removed from the Borough,
the new buildings for which will be a magnificent
ornament to the squalid Lambeth shore. In other
parts of the metropolis the same process of demo-
lition and reconstruction is going on. The narrow
streets about Doctors'-commons are being gradually
removed for a street which is some day to connect
Cannon-street with Blackfriars-bridge ; the vast
area of Smithfield is undergoing complete trans-
formation, and presents at this moment a remark-
able picture of unroofed timbers, as seen from the
other side of the valley ; while in the West
End the Metropolis District Railway, in
the North West the Metropolitan Exten-
sion to St. John's Wood, and in the
North the new Midland line everywhere bring us
into contact with bricks and mortar. The trans-
formations of the last ten years have been consi-
derable, but they are nothing to those which are
now in progress, and the completion of which
another five years may witness. The Napoleonic
rjrtimc has been greatly praised for giving France
a new Paris, but the Victorian era of English legis-
lation, working with less of directness and demon-
stration, will probably accomplish the far greater
work of giving England a new London.
It will be observed that all these improvements
are of a public character. They remove inconve-
niences and eyesores, and tend to make the me-
tropolis handsomer, healthier, and more convenient
for middle class and rich people to live in. But
Londoners have often been reminded that there is
another side to this picture. The demolitions
which have gone on to so vast anextent are chiefly
those of old quarters and poor houses, inhabited
by the labouring population, who are perhaps
worse housed in London than in any city in the
kingdom. Of course nothing can possibly be more
desirable than that all such quarters should be
removed, and there may come a time, perhaps,
when squalid streets and blind alleys, and nests
of crime and pestilence, shall be regarded as evils
unaccountably tolerated by less enlightened gene-
rations. But we are bound to remember that
nothing is being done at present which constitutes
a step in this direction. The demolition of one low
quarter only produces another elsewhere. We pull
down one refuge of poverty, but it is compelled
to find another. We drive a multitude from one
low region to make other regions more crowded,
and other quarters fuller. This has been re-
cognised and talked about in Parliament, and
some attempts have been made to remedy it, but
no effectual legislation has been found possible in