The Sun.
London, England, 1852-09-30 00:00:00

ale 4:44

LONDON, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1852.

Engthmen, with all their boasted activity, cer-
tainly appear upon some matters more disposed to
talk of improvements than to adopt them with the
energy and promptitude of their neighbours. It is
only necessary, in illustration of this, to look at all
that has been said, contrasted with the little that has
been done of late years in the way of metropolitan
changes Proposed either with a regard to beauty or
with an eye to convenience. 'Whether we consider
the arrangements of our public thoroughfares, or the
character of our public monuments, we must allow
that London occupies
a position of very decided in-
feriority when compared with almost any other of the
principal capitals of Christendom. People, never-
theless, accustomed to brag
about the pre-eminence
of the chief city
of Great Britian, not merely in
reference to its
—which magnitude and the is of course reasonable
ex-
tent of its
population—which
altogether undeniable--but actually
enough, because
in regard to the symmetry of its construction and to
the splendour of its decorations! They talk of
Trafalgar-square being " the finest site in Europe"—as
though there was no such spot as the Place de la
Concorde with its venerable obelisk, and its gorgeous
fountains, and its magnificent sculptural adornments
—and, above all, its unrivalled display of national
edifices, revealing to the spectator in the north the
palace of religion, in the south the palace of the
'Legislature, in the east the palace of the Government,
and in the west, at the extremity of the glorious
Chomps Elysdes, the famous Arc de l'Etolle,
commemorative at once of the peaceful
and warlike achievements of the Great NA-
POLEON. Opposed to this Place de la Concorde,
however, we must needs, in the stupidity of our
national egotism, vaunt the superior merits of Tra-
falgar-square—rendering ourselves ridiculous to every
Parisian, by calling it, forsooth it, of all the places
that could be selected, " the finest site in Europe !"
Whereas, contrasting it with the Place de la Concorde,
as the spot already pointed out for a judicious corn-
periled
rsc--Trafalgar-square reveals to the admiring
gaze of the stranger, instead of an Egyptian obelisk,
the unfinished NELSON Testimonial, to defray the
expense of *Mob England was mean enough to accept
a bounty of SOW. from the Emperor of RUSSIA. ;
instead of the sumptuous fountains before mentioned
ginger-beer bottles, on a pair of dumb-
a couple of
waiters ; instead of a Picturesque edifice like the
Thilezies, seen through the Perspective of an avenue
the squat dome and pepper-castors of the National
Gallery ; instead of a classical structure, resembling
what was once called the Chamber
of Deputies,
Northumberland House, surmounted by the effigy
of
a lion with a tale extended like an insane caricature
of a finger-post ; instead of the superb
Itliadeleine, a shop informing her MAJEBTT'S lieges
in somewhat obtiustive characters that coLes,s
TRUSS IS BEST ;!' and instead of some colossal tro-
phy, such as the matchless Arc de l'Etoile, an eques.
t4fa statue of CHARLES the FIRST, which is falling
rapidly Into decay from neglect, as was pointed out
only the other day by an observant correspondent.
Bo much for " the finest site in Europe"—a site all
abet and glare in fine weather, and in wet weather,
all puddles ! Justice would compel us to speak in
somewhat similar terms of the rest of the public places
and monuments of London, hid we the patience to
run through the whole melancholy catalogue. There
is the marble arch, for example—that costly specimen
of princely extravagance, which ought by rights to be
called George the fourth's ,Folly—ituck up at the

dingiest corner of Park-lane as an appropriate en-
trance to the Edgeware-road! An alabaster gate to
a pigstye would be just about as appropriate. Then
again there is the Duke of YORK'S Pillar on the top of
a flight of steps, and the Duke of Yons's statue on
the top of the pillar with a lightning conductor
sprouting out of its skull—suggestive, as a wag once
remarked, of a receipt-file without any receipts.
Among the latest architectural changes in the metro-
polis, absurdities not less remarkable are unfortunately
by no means difficult to be detected. As, for in-
stance, may be seen any day in the week in front of
the new façade of Buckingham Palace in the ludi-
crous and abominable contortions of those heraldric
monstrosities, the lion and the unicorn on either side
of the centre gateway. ESOP run mad could not
have imagined any more eccentric zoological gambols.
They would inevitably have carried anguish to the
heart of M. BUFFON and dismay even to that of Mr.
WOMBWELL. As to the pigtail of his most gracious
Majesty King GEORGE 111. at Cockspur-street, that
has been now for some time past reduced to insigni-
ficance as one of the laughable exhibitions of the
capital by the equestrian, or rather what we
are given to believe, was intended by the de-
signer to represent an equestrian statue of the
late Duke of WELLINGTON, perched up on the sum-
mit of the triumphal arch at Hyde-park Corner—as if
we were afraid that this display of our bad taste
would not be sufficiently conspicuous to foreigners.
Equestrian, we say the monument is generally sup.
posed to be, though whether the animal bestridden by
the effigy of the great warrior is a horse, or an ass, or
a mule, or a zebra, it would be difficult even, we fancy,
for Mr. GORDON CUMMING to conjecture. Contrast
this preposterous testimonial to the illustrious Duke,
or that other one in front of the Royal Exchange,
looking down the Poultry, or the naked figure of
AciauxEs near Apsley House, throwing himself into
one of the attitudes rendered familiar to the public by
monumentsnf the
the exhibition of the Poses Plastiques—contrast any
one o f theset e
With STEELE'S noble eques-
trian ndeparted warrior recently placed
ata
in front of the Register House, opposite the
North Bridge, at the east end of Prince's-street, in
the city of Edinburgh 1 Any one who has seen these
four very different testimonials will not require two
seconds before • deciding that the capital of Scotland
has borne off
the palm from the capital of lingland
is doing honour by the aid of art to the glorious
achievements of the departed Duke of WELLINGTON !
And so it is with reference to the majority of the
various monuments adorning, no, not adorning, but
absolutely disgracing the streets of our metropolis.
Even the public works undertaken in London,
principally with a view to purposes of utility, have
been found, in several important instances, to be
altogether inadequate to the wants of the population.
There are the bridges! A statement recently made
to the Court of Common Council by Mr. BENNOCH
demonstrated rather painfully the indolence and nig-
gardliness revealed by the capital of England in this
particular. Paris, with a population about one-third
of that of our chief city, has, across the Seine, no less
than twenty-seven bridges altogether ! Lyons, with
a population about one-seventh that of our metropolis,
has twelve bridges over the Saone and seven over the
Rhone—making nineteen in the aggregate ! London,
on the contrary, with the enormous number of
2,369,640 inhabitants, has thrown across the Thames
only seven bridges from London-bridge, going as
high up the river as the bridge at Vauxhall ! In-
stead of seven bridges, as Mr. BENNOCH observed, on
the 23d instant, we ought to have, taking the ratio
visible in Paris, actually forty-two, and taking the
ratio visible in Lyons, absolutely no less than one
hundred and thirty• two bridges over the river Thames,
in the immediate vicinity of the metropolis. The
contrast presented in this matter between London
and the two chief cities in France, is lamentable
' enough, it must be admitted. Yet, added to the
forgoing considerations there are two others which
cannot fail to enhance the regrets of every one alive
to the disgrace thereby reflected upon the metropolis
of Great Britain. Notwithstanding the enormous
sums lavished upon their construction and repair, two
out of these seven bridges in London are already in a
ruinous condition. That is one of the supplementary
considerations to which we have referred. The other
is, if possible, yet more disgraceful in its character,
namely, that out of the seven bridges of the English
capital only three are freely opened to the use of the
population. There is London-bridge, which cost
35,600/. for the removal of the old bridge, and
680,2321. for the building of the new bridge, and
1,840,436/. for the approaches. That is, of course,
free, and it must be admitted that it is a noble struc-
ture, worthy of its name and of its situaticn. There is
Southwark-bridge, which cost including the approaches
800,0001.—sod to cross which you have to pay a toll
of a halfpenny ! There is Blackfriars-bridge, which,
every expense included, cost 210,000/. That is ano-
ther of the free bridges, but unfortunately it is one,
also, rapidly falling away at the foundations. There
is Waterloo-bridge, which cost exactly 1,000,0001,
and which excited the unfeigned admiration of
CAN ove—and to cross it you have also to pay another
paltry toil of a halfpenny. There is Hungerford-
bridge, which cost 110,0001, and which likewise ex-
torts payment from the foot-passenger. There is
Westminster-bridge, which cost 388,7001., and is
free, but unluckily more ruinous even than the other
free bridge at Blackfriars ! And, lastly, there is
Vauxhall-bridge, which cost 150,000/., and which
can only be walked over by the expenditure of another
halfpenny. So that even out of the seven bridges of
the metropolis there is only one that can be regarded
with unalloyed satisfaction by the inhabitants—we
mean, of course, London-bridge—the six others being
either " tolled " or dilapidated. The melancholy
truth is, that in London we are about as shabby and
as blundering with our bridges as with our public
monuments.

Considering that our capital is so poorly supplied
with the means of traffic to and fro across the river,
we are gratified to observe the encouragement afforded
by the Court of Common Council to Mr. BErNocn's
proposal for a new bridge, to be called St. Paul's
Bridge, and estimated to cost altogether 144,0001., at
a point of the Thames situated between the bridges
already raised (and one of them, we may add, already
tumbling down) at Southwark and Blackfriars. But
considering the disgraceful state of six out of the
seven existing lines of communication over the Thames
between the banks of Surrey and of Middlesex, we
do think that it would be more rational to justify the
old before adventuring upon any new expenditure.
Reconstruct the bridges that are falling into ruins, or
build others as Close as
possible in their vicinity, and
remove the tollgates those obstructing now standing
at Southwark, at
Waterloo, at Hungerford, at Vaux-
hall—and then talk, if you will, of erecting any
number of new bridges that may be deemed advisable,
taking into account the enormous exigencies of the
population. •
___

;he which
ofh a have
et askael ne
cihnacnoguesse
Ireland, are far too impor-
tantthe press. The sittings of
The social economic
of
f place,E n Encumbered
baerree
di n
Estatesprogress, i
n
to be overlooked by
the court commenced on the 25th of November, 1849,
and its proceedings are reported to the Ist of Sep.
tember, 1852. By this report it appears that the
number of petitions presented for the sale of estates
was 2,146, of which 2,389 have been fisted by the
Commissioners. The encumbrances, as stated in
these petitions, amounted to 30,515,3161.; the net
annual rental of the estates so petitioned to be sold,
as laden with those encumbrances, was 1,450,0004 ,
the number of estates sold 772, realising 7,215,083/. ;
the amount distributed among creditors (including
980,0001. allowed to purchasers being encumbrancers)
was 4,250,0001, or nearly two-thirds of the sum
produced :—the petitions on which the allocation
schedule has been settled, the money paid to the par-
ties entitled, and the proceedings entirely disposed of,
420 :—the 772 estates, or parts of estates, sold
from the first sale under the Act (19th February,
1850), to the end of July, 1852, not quite two years
and a half, were distributed in 4,062 lots, to 2,355
Purchasers (of whom 120 reside out of Ireland),
thereby more than trebling the number of proprietors :
the quantity of land that thus changed hands is
about 1,050,000 acres, or one-twentieth of the sur-
face of Ireland, the Ordnance Survey making the
wh area, exclusive of water, to amount to
20,177,446 acres :—the purchasers at and under
oil an
the haveiga beentin
the in
industrious, 2,0001., are two-thirds of the whole number :—the
greatestioo
sales Galway,
al w'ay,, half to
nearly
i,owScotch

county, Londonderry :—the whole amount invested by
Englishmen and Scotchmen is 1,100,1261.:—the
average cost of each sale (including valuing, survey-
ing, printing, and law expenses) being only from
2001. to 3001. :—the sum remaining to be divided
among creditors, 3,000,0001.:—the money which will
immediately be expended in the improvement of the
purchased estates, 3,000,0001::—the sales effected
were in 25 out of the 32 counties of Ireland ; the con-
veyances executed were as 2,311 as against 2,355 sales :
—the largest purchases by Scotchmen even in Con.
naught, being three-fourths of the whole, while the
amount invested there were two-thirds of the sum
realised—that is, where capital and improvements
are most required, where distress was the most
notorious, and where the decrease of population, by
death or emigration, had been the largest.
These are curious and valuable statistics. They
show several important and gratifying results, and
some which were wholly unlooked for. First, that,
out of the Seven Millions sterling realised by
the sales of Irish estates, fully Six Millions
were paid by Irish purchasers, thereby
disproving the assertion that English and Scottish
capital would be chiefly invested in Ireland. An-
other is, that in Connaught, hitherto considered by
far the wildest and most uncivilised part of the island,
English and Scottish capital has been most freely
invested. Thus, says one of our authorities, "63,000
acres of Sir R. O'DouriELL's Mayo estate have been
purchased by English capitalists, led by Mr. ASH.
WORTH, author of The Saxon in Ireland.' And
now a large portion of even Achill, and the north
shores of Clew Bay, are in the possession of English.
men; again, in Galway, another set of English
purchasers, Messrs. TIERNEY, EASTWOOD, PALMERI
and ORR, are grouped on the shores of Ballinakill
Bay, and in the vale of Kylemore. Large tracts have
been taken on the Marquis of SLloo's estate by Eng-
lish and Scotch gentlemen, and many southern land-
lords in the west have also induced skilful andenterpris-
ing agriculturists to settle on their lands by giving
long and beneficial leases. Many tenant-farmers, from
the other side of the Channel, have settled in the
Western Counties within the last three years ; but I
have no means of arriving at even an approximate esti-
mate of their number ; however, the greater propor-
tion of English and Scotch purchasers is in those very
districts of the far West, where the population has
been most diminished, and where capital and im-
provement are chiefly required; three-fourths of the
total acreage being in Connaught, and two- thirds of
the total amount being invested in the same province.
The immigration, too, is confessedly not of an expul-
sive character; abundance of unoccupied land, pe-
rished from water, or the surface of which has been
scratched in scattered patches for centuries, being
in the market, and inviting the advent of a more lu-
crative system of culture. The number of English
and Scotch purchasers, as well as the amount of their
purchases, are also steadily on the increase. Up to
January 31st of this year, the purchasers were one-
twenty-fifth as to number, and one-tenth as to
the total amount of the purchase-money ; and up to
July 31st, the proportion as to number is one-twen-
tieth, and as to amount about one-sixth of the total
purchase-money."

Emigration, which has so largely taken place, has
had one good effect in Ireland : it has reduced the
great competition for land. In the West, where
English and Scotch were now settling, giving em-
ployment to the peasantry, the condition and con-
duct of the people was rapidly improving. At the
British Association, Professor HANCOCK recently
stated that an estate in Cavan had been bought under
the Encumbered Estates Act, about two years since,
by an encumbrancer, for 10,0001, less than the
average of the mortgage; and he had tried the es-
periment of keeping all the old tenants on the estate,
assisting them to improve their dwellings, and re-
ducing their rents to a reasonable amount, and the
result was that everything had gone on prosperously,
and the estate was now worth upwards of 10,0001.
more than was given for it two years since. Not a
tenant had left the estate, though some of them had pre-
viously determined to emigrate, money having been
sent home, from their relations abroad, for the pur-
pose. Instead, however, of emigrating, they applied
the money to the payment of their rents, and sent
for their relations to come home. The whole
rent was reduced from 1,9001. to 1,7001. a-year, and
the new rent had been very punctually paid.
Another circumstance was mentioned, as showing
the prevalent respect for property, and the reward
of enterprise in the West. A grocer from Hudders-
field, named ELLIE, in opposition to the advice of all
his friends, opened a warehouse for groceries, &c.,
in the wildest part of Connemara, to give fair value
for ready money payments; and, whereas he was
told that he would never take 01. a-week, his average
receipts had been 601. a-week, sometimes upwards of
1001. a-week ; and the only difficulty this tradesman
had was to keep the gentry out of his books.—No
doubt 1 they would not be " fine old Irish gentle-
men" without trying to get into debt with the
shopkeepers ! The Earl of MAYO, who had seen Mr.
ELms's establishment in the wildest part of Conne-
mara, said it was equal to any shop in Regent-street,
and if he had heard, before its establishment, that any
person was about to open such a shop, he would have
thought him mad, but the result had proved the
contrary.

We finally arrive at the fact, that among the per-
sons for the sale of whose estates petitions had been
presented to the Commissioners, there were 2 Mar-
quises, 15 Earls, 3 Viscounts, 1 Lord, 5 Barons,
6 Honourables, 1 Right Honourable, 20 Baronets,
5 Knights, 2 Counts, 7 M.P.'s, and 9 Ex-M.P.'s.
Country gentlemen made up the rest of the 2,416
embarrassed land-owners. To these people, it must
have been a relief to get rid of the splendid poverty,
the pretence and the necessity, the nominal rent-roll
and the actual want of means, which weighed them
to the dust. What use was an estate said to be worth
10,0001. (and probably rack-rented to that nominal
amount), when one-half of it was good only upon
paper, as the tenants could not and would not pay the
excessive rents they had promised, and when four-
fifths of what actually was paid went to discharge the
mortgagee's interest or the bill-broker's usurious and
ruinous discounts and renewals. The nominal owner
of 10,0001. a year, receiving probably 1,0001. for his
own use, would be expected, if a resident landlord, to
live as if be really had the full income of his estate, and
Iriah improvidence, vanity, and folly have tempted
hundreds of this class to spend not according to what
they had, but to what they wished the public to think
they had. They could mortgage their estates, but
generally entails and marriage settlements precluded
the sale of a part to preserve the remainder. So they
went on, reckless and ruined, every year making
them more and more embarrassed. The Encum-
bered Estates Act has put these pretenders (for such
the unfortunate and not quite innocent men are) into
their proper position. Some have turned out paupers,
some have secured a competency out of the wreck of
their fortunes, and may begin life anew as unem-
barrassed men. A new class of proprietors are being
introduced into Ireland, to replace the rollicking,
careless, debt-incurring landowners, who are good for
nothing but to figure as the heroes of improbable
fiction. Stern justice, sure in its track, has heavily
stricken the Irish landlords to the ground. The day
of retribution has arrived, and better hopes may be
entertained for the country they so eagerly helped to
ruin. Great was their offence, heavy is the ex-
piation.

_HER MAJESTY'S DEPARTURE FROM SCOTLAND.—
We understandanithtaetlthe date of her Majesty's departure from
The Queen will, yfixed for Monday, the 11th proximo.
Edin-
burgh on the even'
Balmoral is de
therefore,n in all probability, arrive in
Holyrood Palace on evening of
thef same day, and depart from
ollowing morning for the south.
Her Royal HighneyssbythaeDuchess of Kent is expected to
TmnaenshEino.nnsies about to be extended
precede her Majesty
.., few days.—Edinburgh Advertiser.
clump
smon the west side of
IN ORTHUAIBERLAND HOtrg
since 1805, The court-yard of
this old and historical ducal
during the ensuing year.
Northumberland court, an isolated
face-
tiously known to expectants and half 13 officers as the
Scotch Barracks, are to be pulled down -pay
tothe ou understandout-going
oi his
ng Graceten an t
sp.r o plorem, of. the ex-
rteelnutth ampleß
remuneration to
Bar-
racks" at one period afforded a residence to the • ar-
immortal
Nelson.
We have been informed this morning that her
Majesty has been graciously pleased to confer a pension of
1001. a year on the widow of the late Mr. Pugin, the archi-
tect. The talent displayed by the deceased in his decoration
of the New Palace at Westminster, for no man was more at
home in the management of details, no doubt brought him
into contact with Prince Albert, and led to the graceful re-
cognition of his abilities by her Majesty in a way acceptable
to his family and the public.—Guardian.
Her Majesty has been graciously pleased to appoint
Sir Wm. Yardley, the second judge of the Supreme Court at
Bombay, to be Chief
Justice, in the room of Sir Erskine
rum vtio wind.