The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-31 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP 'T

PosT.—ln waHling along the greet thoroughfares
of London, those arteries through which the life-
blood of our commerce circulates in ever-increa.eing
streams, attention is fixed upon what we see above
ground. It is to the palaces, the mansions, the
great mercantile establishments, the shops, the
traffic, the vehicles, the carriages and horses, the
equipages of the great, the carts and waggons of
the retail or wholesale tradesmen, that we look at
as at once the symbol and the embodiment of our
wealth and civilisation. As for the roadway itself,
it is to most people simply a roadway and nothing
more. There lies the road ; it is a very good road and
it is impossible to conceive what we should do and
how we should get on in any sense without it. But
there one's reflections on the subject generally end,
whenever, indeed, they go so far. But underneath
that road there is an amount of money, literally
and metaphorically, sunk that almost bellies com-
putation. If the paving stones, and the concrete
bottom, and the subsoil were transparent, like glass,
we should see a net of works, a mighty maze, which
though not without a plan, would appear to the
uninitiated spectator as more intricate and bewil-
dering than the web of introcrossing lines at the
London-bridge station. Underneath ono great
thoroughfare runs the subterranean railway from
Paddiogton to the City, the gas and water mains
packed away at the sides, and the sewers stowed
nobody knows where. Under another, the weight
of the air we breathe, fifteen pounds on the square
inch, is continually driving backwards and for-
wards, through an iron tunnel, large cars full of
packages—the " Pneumatic Despatch," for the
transmission of letters, book parcels, &c., being
now as much an accomplished fact underground
as the overhouse telegraphs for conveying mes-
sages are in the air. But, to form an adequate idea
of what there is or soon will be underneath the
streets of London and its Suburbs, we must look
to such works as the Main Drainage with its high,
low, and middle levels. The Middle Level North
Sewer, for instance, when finished, will be a sub-
terranean river, black as the Styx, and equally to
be avoided, running from Kensal Green to Old
Ford. For a distance of about two miles of its
course—which is but a fraction certainly, but still
a considerable length in itself—it runs entirely
under dwelling-houses. Half of its length, of about
13 miles, has to be excavated by tunnelling. Its
cost is estimated at about £330,000 i 3 round num-
bers. This work is in rapid progress. The High
Level Northern Main, running from Holloway to
Otd Ford, a distance of eight miles, has been com-
pleted at a cost of £lBO.OOll and some odd hundreds.
The Southern Outfall Main is nearly eight miles
long, and extends from the Pumping Station at
Deptford, under Greenwich and Woolwich, and
along the Essex Marshes, as.far as Halfway Reacb,
et Crossness. It has been completed at a cost of
£310,000 odd. Though far out from London, yet
as connected with these, the whole forming one
great work, we may mention the Northern Outfall
works, which will constitute the outlet for the whole
sewage of the metropolis into the Thames, to which
venerable stream it is to be delivered for conveyance
to the sea; unless means should be devised for
utilising a commodity which, as manure, has been
estimated at being worth a pound per head for every
unit of the population of the city which it drains.
fhe Northern Outfall works are nearly 15 miles
long, reaching from Old Ford to Barking Creek ;
they consist of a vast aqueduct upon arches or em-
bankment, and pass over seven streams and rivers,
including the Lea, besides two lines of railway ;
they are nearly completed, and their estimated cost
is about £615,000. The Southern Outfall works
.are also nearly completed. They consist of two
contracts ; one comprises the works for pump-
ing or lifting the sewage to heights varying from
ten to thirty-four feet. This portion will cost
nearly £45,000. The other contract consists of the
engine and boiler houses, reservoirs, and ancillary
works, and amounts to £300,000. Then there
is the High Level South Sewer from Clapham
to Deptford, running a distance of nearly ten
miles. which has been completed, with a branch
to Dulwich, for £217,000. The Southern
Low Level Sewer passes from Putney through
Wandsworth, Battersea, Kennington, Camberwell,
New Cross to Deptford, a distance of Dearly ten
miles, and when finished will cost about £214,000.
['he Northern Outfall Reservoir will cover about
eleven acres. It is intended as the receptacle for
the whole northern drainage of the metropolis of
London north of the Themes, the sewage being dis-
charged into the bed of the river, about three bun-
died feet from the bank, and at ebb tide, so that it
may be swept clean down to the sea by the cur-
lent. The contract for this portion of the works is
£161,000. The Deptford Pumping Station, for
lifting the sewage, will cost, for both contracts, up-
wards of £135,000 when finished. In addition to
these works there are some branch or subordinate
ones. The Ranelagh Overflow Sewer is rather more
than a mPe long, passing from Kensington to
Knightsbridge, and has been completed at a cost of
about £31,500. The Acton Branch is rather longer,
and runs from Acton to Notting-dale. This also
has been complete:ll; its cost was under £lO,OOO.
The weetirn area sewers are intended to drain
Hams-net-eolith and Futhem ; they ore between four
and five miles lone, and will cost about £56,700.
The Bermondsey branch si,wers wit: drain the lo-
cality indicated by their name down to Deptford,
and will cost about £107,000. The Fleet Sewer
runs across the course of what was anciently known
as the River of the Wells, flowing from Highgate,
~nd falling into the Thames by Blackfriars, with a
width near its mouth large enough at one time to
admit small ships up as far as Farringdon-street.
This sewer has given the engineers and contractors
great difficulty, in consequence of its having been
disturbed by the Underground Railway, where both
intersect at Victoria-street, Clerkenwell. The cost,
which it is said the Railway Company will have to
pay, is estimated at neatly £25,000. These sums
mount up to a total of about a couple of millions
and three-quarters as the coat of our utilitarian
works. 'there is also a subterranean survey going
en amongst our other underground projects. Such
are tome of the most salient features of the report
just issued by the Metropolitan Board of Works.
HERALD.—Week by week the returns furnished
by Mr. Farnall exhibit an increase of pauperism in
the cotton districts, and as yet the improvements
undertaken under the Public Works Act have not
arrested the steady flow of poverty. Until the
winter merges into spring it is to be feared there
will be little amelioration in the condition of the
unfortunate operatives, and we have too much
reason for believing that it will be our weekly task
to chronicle bad tidings from Lancashire. Like the
American war, the crisis seems no nearer its end
than it was a twelvemonth since. Matters mend
only to grow worse again, and improvement ceases
when it reaches a certain point, leaving large num-
bers still dependent upon charity or parish alms for
the means of existence. Seeing the course that has
been pursued in dealing with the difficulty, it almost
gives birth to the wish that the public had not re-
sponded so liberally to the appeal made on behalf
of Lancashire. Had a smaller amount been contri-
buted the exhaustion of funds would, there is little
doubt, have incited the friends of the poverty-
stricken to make an attempt to obtain permanent
employment for them. As matters now stand, over
£300,000 are yet available for helping those who
are leading lives of idleness. If, in connection with
this fact-, we take into consideration the high rate
of wages which millowners boast they pay their
workpeople, can it be wondered at. when artisans
are told that the cotton-trade must revive, that they
prefer staying at home to putting themselves to the
trouble of journeying into other districts and there
learning new callings? We do not for an instant
seek to disparage the efforts of the Central Commit-
tee, nor is it our intention to reflect upon the admi-
rable manner in which it has discharged the arduous
duties imposed upon it. Our sole object is to point
out and insist upon the fact, that the distress in the
North has now come within such manageable limits
that there would be no difficulty in putting an
end to it altogether. It was a favourite axiom
with the Manchester school of political economists
that the relations between labour and capital
adjusted themselves. Yet we now find that ab-
solutely Government aid has been evoked, in
order that at some future day capital may
not suffer inconvenience from a want of laboui!
This is as pretty an example of the difference be-
tween precept and practice as we could wish to
meet with. We may be told that if the country
could absorb the superabundance of labour to be
found in Lancashire the demand would have been
made for it. In reply to this we have only to ask'
how, up to the present time, have those
work which have been made to the
att,hltaaxhtnieei n
ds.,,
operatives been responded to P
stances in which the cotton hands ben left them
workp.eopt have been re-
employments for a few days,con-
d
without assigning any reason f°.
equalnrWt t tieeehCiar:veueelidtt strange'arl:ecf lyeserni in-
operatives nrwe:
duct. We believe that With
made to supply affirm that where
promoted ; so that it
the want
quired no efforts have been
from Lancashire. Fihntiasl?):!einot even a judicious
system of etni
graettla7ed no
aeke:
may be safety encouragement has been
any great exertions
:the
illsdult Public to
finding employment f
the existing or the operatives.
a regretted, es we cannot but feel
state of affairs there is more
exhibited for the interest of the millowners
anxiety
nYeal symfy
givenTl hvisari towards
to be eep r
ethy for the unfortunate condition of
If an appeal be made from Lanes-
shire for
work for the operatives, it will, we are
positive, be at once answered ; and if the men them-
selves will earnestly endeavour to learn new trades
they will find teachers ready to instruct them, and
employers willing to pay them a fair wage for a fair