The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-10 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 10, 1863

To-day an event of no small importance takes
plaee in our busy metropolis. It will not be visible
to the general public, the casual visitor may pass
through many of our leading thoroughfares with-
out becoming conscious of it, yet the occurrence is
one which concerns the comfort and convenience of
the modern Babylon more closely than any other
question of the day, not excepting the fashionable
and formidable vice ofgarotting. We may hope that
when, as our clever contemporary Punch suggests,
a Home Secretary or Inspector of Prisons shall
have been stopped in the Queen's highway by
some short-sighted garotter, sharpened legisla-
tion and increased police may do something to
mitigate the evil, and allow these interesting
criminals to sink into insignificance. But the
event of to-day will, we may hope, increase in im-
portance as the complicated network of our London
streets is threaded in all directions by subterranean
highways, and the opening of the first Metropo.
litan Railway becomes the precursor of many others,
The idea has long been floating in the minds of
men of science and enterprise, combated and ridi-
culed, as all new schemes and projects invariably
are, by the cautioas and the interested.
Still, if a scheme has in it the ele-
ments of success, and has the right men to
work it out, it can surmount these preliminary
difficulties, and probably neither the idea nor its
advocates are much the worse for undergoing the
test of opposition and scepticism at the commence-
ment. It is often necessary to ballast the eager
comfidenco of the projectors with the sober experi-
ence of unimaginative practical men, and in the
present instance there was certainly much to consi-
der. The difficulties, although, as events have
proved, not insurmountable, were certainly very
great, demanding not only a high degree of engi-
neering skill, but plenty of capital to support it.
The conflicting interests were numerous, and, after
all else was disposed of, it remained to be considered
whether the scheme, when accomplished, would
prove an actual success or only a splendid failure,
like its amphibious counterpart the Thames Tunnel.
All these obstacles are now happily conquered,
and Londoners need no longer grumble at the
inconvenient size of their unwieldy city when
as they traverse its crowded streets they may
send a message to any part of it by the wires that
surmount their heads, and transport themselves
and their goods to any other locality by
means
of the underground line. The principal advantage
expected to arise from the subterranean passage is,
of course, the relief of the densely-thronged tho-
roughfares of the upper world. Everyone has, at
some time or other, suffered from one of the custo-
mary "dead-leeks" in the heart of the city on a
busy afternoon. We can fancy the idea of
an underground road suggesting itself for
the first time
to some agonised traveller sit-
ting, hand, in a h;Telessly blockaded
watch in
vehicle, while the minutes that were to bear him'to
the station were ebbing rapidly away. Now, when
one train can take him to the other, the case will be
very different; but the full benefit is not yet reaped.
The line, whose completion was celebrated yester-
day, and which is this day opened for public traffic,
extends only from Paddington to Farringdon-
street, but it is the first step towards a
unc-
tion of the lines, and a much general jgreater extension of
the underground system. The terminus of the
newly completed line is to be at Finsbury•circus,
which will thus carry its goods and pas_
sengers into the centre of city life. Various
projects are talked of, including a scheme
for converting the now useless Tunnel into a rail-
way, and a plan which will benefit the western dis-
tricts by opening a line between Leicester-square
and Kensington. Certainly no schemers need
despair after the triumphant conclusion of the
arduous undertaking just happily terminated. We
refer our readers to another part of our impression
for the interesting narrative of the difficulties to be
surmounted. What with the inevitable burrowing
under streets and houses, the working amid water
pipes, gas pipes, mains, and sewers, and, above all,
the obstacle of the great Fleet Ditch, which had to
be crossed four times, we do not wonder that more
than once the task was almost abandoned. To Mr.
JAY belongs the glory or
having subjigAted the
most formidable foe—a success which, as
Mr.
LOW him
E happily remarked, entitled
to claim an
office lately vacant—that of Admiral of the Fleet !
The buretiug of the Fleet-ditch from the heavy