The Sun.
London, England, 1865-04-05 00:00:00

Opening of the Main Drainage.

No public celebration could have gone off from
first to last more delightfully than did the inaugu-
ration yesterday of the Main Drainage Works at
Crossness by his Royal Highness the Prince of
Wales. The day itself was radiantly beautiful. The
weather could scarcely have been more propitious
than it was, from the commencement to the very
conclusion of the proceedings. In all the arrange-
ments, too, there was nowhere noticeable a hitch of
any kind. The noble building in which the deed to
be done was accomplished, the feat, namely, of
setting the whole of the gigantic machinery for the
first time in motion, was of itself worth going all
that distance from town to see. It will always be a
show place--that lofty and spacious, and really
it should be said, also, if only for the beauty of the
machinery and the splendour of the decorations, that
superb edifice. The Company, however, who were
then assembled together to witness the set-
ting in motion—by the hand of his Royal
Highness himself—of the vast and symmetrical
machinery that will henceforth accomplish, day and
night, so much of the augean labours of cleansing
the metropolis—cleansing it at once of both sewage
and rainfall so very completely and thoroughly—
the company yesterday assembled together at Cross-
ness for the purpose of witnessing the event of this
great inauguration, comprised among it the pick
and choice and flower of the various estates of
the realm. There were there, for example,
collected together, representatives, and very
conspicuous representatives, indeed, of the Crown—
of the Lords both Spiritual and Temporal—and of the
Commons in Parliament assembled. As represen-
tatives of the Sovereign, for instance, there were
three Princes of the blood royal! The heir-apparent
to the Crown himself, the actual inaugurator of the
great works yesterday set-a-going—and, accom-
panying his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, there
was her Majesty's second son H.R.H. Prince Alfred,
together with whom was H.R.H. the Duke of Cam-
bridge, the Commander-in-Chief. There, again, as
representatives of the Lords Spiritual were both the
archbishops—the Archbishop of Canterbury who
said the grace before the Banquet, and the Arch-
bishop of York, who in a manner, we may say,
chaunted the grace afterwards. And with
the two archbishops, there were two also
of the most eminent occupants of the epis-
copal bench, the Bishop of Oxford, and
the Bishop of London. The Lord Chancellor
was to have been there, and the Prime Minister
himself—neither of whom, however, " showed"
upon the occasion. There, however, was the Chief
Commissioner of Public Works, the Right Hon. W.
Cowper, side by side with his Conservative pre-
decessor in the same office, the Lord John Manners !
As representing the creme de la creme of the aria -
tocracy, there very noticeably among his peers was
his Grace the Duke of Sutherland. As for the House
of Commons it was represented by shoals from
both sides—leading members from the Government
side of the House and from the side of the Opposi-
tion. Professor Owen and Sir Roderick Murchison
were there, distinguishable at a glance, among our
leading men of science. Architecture was well re-
presented, among others, by Mr. Tite, Member for
Bath and architect of the Royal Exchange. Lite-
rature was represented by men like Lord Houghton
and Robert Bell. Journalism--the Fourth Estate
of the Realm, according to the famous dictum of
Burke—was well represented in its turn by men
such as George Sala and the Reporter (par excel-
lence) of the Times whose, as usual, graphic
account of the proceedings we shall here, with
all due acknowledgment, append-to these remarks
of our own from the columns of our leading contem-
porary. It is especially noticeable, by the way, be-
fore closing these remarks of ours, however, upon the
pr9ceedings of yesterday, that whereas there were
only two toasts proposed, before the termination
of the midday banquet or luncheon—the toast o

" Her Majesty's Health," proposed by Mr. Thwaites,

as occupant of the chair (between the two young
Princes) a post of honour, his by right officially
as Chairman of the Board of Works—and the toast
of Success to the Works which were that day in-
augurated, a toast given by H.R.H. the Prince of

Wales—the latter was really and truly one of the
most comprehensive toasts ever proposed in any
assemblage, being, in point of fact, the Health of
Three Millions of People ! The Health of this
great Province of Houses—the Health of all of us
Londoners—of this area of more than one hundred

and seventeen square miles ! It was a toast, more

over, very gracefully, as well as graciously proposed
by the young Prince, who acquitted himself through-
out, to every one's satisfaction.

(From the Times.)
Yesterday his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales
celebrated the completion of another instalment of
the Main Drainage by formally starting the huge
engines which lift the waters of the Southern Out-
fall Sewer. The ceremony, as may be imagined,
was merely formal, though not without its interest,
or even as a mere spectacle without its peculiar at-
tractions. The Main Drainage as a system of sani-
tary reform has now been in work throughout the
greater part of its length for nearly a year. The
mere unit which was added to its operation yester-
day was but a few million gallons of dirty water
given to a bulk some ten times greater than the
Serpentine which is now daily deodorized and swept
far away. The whole plan can never be finished till
the Low Level Sewer which is to traverse the
Thames Embankment is constructed, and, as this
result may be delayed for one or two years more, it
was not inappropriate to celebrate yesterday such a
step of progress in the works as now relieves Lon-
don of some 50,000,000 gallons of its daily stream
of sewage. The event was really one of such muni-
cipal importance as the dwellers in London are
rarely called upon to attend, for what between the
fear of centralization and the general incapacity of
broken up and rival systems of self-government,
there is no city in the empire which has been so
much mismanaged as this metropolis. To yes-
terday's inauguration, therefore, every one of note
in London was invited, and—what is more—
almost all who were invited came. The leading
members of the Lords and Commons, the Lord
Mayor, Sheriffs, and Under-Sheriffs, with such mem-
bers of the corporation as are chairmen of the com-
mittees of the Court of Aldermen and Common
Council, and a small but distinguished list of unoffi-

cial gentlemen, included all who had the honour o:

receiving invitations. The general mass of the visi-
tom left Charing-cross in two special trains, and
travelled direct to Crossness-point, at Plumstead.
His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales embarked
from Westminster Palace onboard the Oread. With

the Prince were H.R.H. Prince Alfred, H.R.H.
the Duke of Cambridge, Major Grey, Major Tees-
dale, Lord Alfred Paget, Sir George Grey, and the
Marquis of Hartington. On board the boat also
were Mr. Thwaites, chairman of the Metropolitan
Board of Works, Mr. E. Collinson, Mr. R. Free-
man, Mr. W. H. Lammin, Mr. W. Newton, Mr.
James Pew, Mr. John Savage, Mr. H. L. Taylor,
Mr. Silas Taylor, Mr. J. W. Bazelgette (engineer
in chief), and Mr. John Pollard, clerk of the Board.

The Oread at once stood down the river, but, in-
stead of proceeding to Crossness-point, on the Ken-
tish side, where all the visitors were assembled, kept
over to the Barking shore, that the royal party
might be enabledto see some portion of the still more
stupendous works which have been erected on that
side of the Thames. At this point one of the main
culverts to the reservoir had been left free of sewage
for that day only, and this was kept open for the
inspection of the distinguished party. Apparently,
however, its late tenant had not been out of posses-
sion for a sufficient time to tempt a long examination,
for a very few • minutes sufficed to bring the party
back with their handkerchiefs to their noses. For
the same reason only a hurried glance was given to
one of the reservoirs which had been kept empty,
and which was, if possible, even less tempting both
to sight and smell than one of the great main out-
falls. After a short stay at Barking, therefore, the
party re-embarked and crossed to the Erith marshes,
where the formal ceremonial of the day was to be
gone through, and where all the invited guests were
waiting, though not impatiently, for there was quite
enough to see, for the advent of his Royal Highness.
Here among others were the Archbishop of Canter-
bury, the Archbishop of York, the Duke of Suther-
land, the Marquis of Townshend, the Marquis of
Caithness, Earl Stanhope, the Earl of Lucan,