The Sun.
London, England, 1862-07-25 00:00:00

accumulating until the whole sewer was filled to
where it crosses the railway tunnel at Frederick-

street. At this point the sewer was not then com-
pletely cased up and secured in the manner in which
it is done at King's-cross. Here for a short time
great apprehensions were felt lest the enormous
bulk of water so confined should burst over and into
the tunnel, where it would have done an immense
amount of mischief. Fortunately, the pressure
proved too much for the obstacles which were bar-
ring its progress where the sewer had fallen, and
the great stream at last forced a passage, but not
till it has saturated and sapped away a good deal of
the 12-feet strip of earth that intervened between
the sewer and the massive retaining wall of the
Victoria-street station.

The Board of Works had put up shores to support
he tottering rubbish on each side of where the

sewer had given in, and had began a cutting to

divert its course from passing over and into the rub -
blish. But the mischief had gone too far. On the
Monday following the accident the water had com-
pletely soaked through the earth and through and
under the foundations of the railway Walls, which
began to yield. As these gradually sloped back-

wards towards the gap in the road, the pressure
became too much for the supporting shores. What
followed was then a matter of course-120 feet of
the massive wall slipped very slowly down as the
water undermined its foundations, the foundations
working forward as the summit of the wall inclined
back, and, as this brought an increased pressure on
the top of the sewer that was still standing, while
the support of the earth was washed from its side,
120 feet more of the Fleet ditch collapsed as the
wall leant on it. Of course, the force of water in
the sewer was unable to push away the mass of
earth and bricks that now choked it, and the waters
again accumulated in it up to the Frederick-street
junction. But, in the interval that bad elapsed
since the first break in, Mr. Fowler had averted the
danger that menaced from this point in case of the
sewer again filling, and all was perfectly secure.
The sewer therefore must have filled almost to its
very source till it again acquired strength to force
its way over the rubbish into the excavation for the
railway station. As soon as the water had filled
this it found its way into the railway tunnel itself,
up which it penetrated for some SOO yards, dimi-
nishing in depth as the incline of the railway rose,
and being nowhere deeper than at its mouth, where
it was 5e feet, As soon as the channel of the sewer
was diverted above the breakage, and brought by a
deep channel along Victoria-street to a point below
the fracture, the filthy inundation ceased; the water
was at once pumped out of the tunnel, to which it
has done no manner of injury, and the subterranean
railway left as perfect as before the accident, with
the exception of the overthrown 120 feet of wall,
which, as we have said, £7OO will replace as before.
The examination of the sewer since the accident
shows that in that portion at least which passes
along Victoria-street the brickwork is of the flim-
siest and most worthless kind. Though the tunnel
of the sewer is 10 feet 6 inches wide, the brickwork
is only 15 inches thick, scarcely enough to enable it
to bear the earth above it. Even 8-feet savers are
now sometimes made with five rows of bricks, bat
this of 10 feet has only three. The wonder is, con-
sidering the loose soil through which it runs at this
part, how it has stood so long as it has done. The
whole sewer, however, has been known for some
time past to be scarcely equal to the work it has
had to do, and in the general plan for the main
drainage it is intended to relieve it of some of its
overflow water by making a junction from it into
the great Middle Level Sewer some distance above
Victoria-street. It will be no slight relief when the
whole of the great main drainage scheme is com-
pleted. Readers who wish to have a good notion
of the deliberate manner in which we have been
poisoning our atmosphere and our river for years
should go now to Victoria-street to the open cutting
through which Fleet ditch has been diverted, and
watch the rush and volume of its black foetid waves
pouring down thousands of gallons per second to the
Thames, The smell along the course of this torrent
of filth is almost enough to breed a pestilence in the
neighbourhood. Sanitary precautions, however,
have not been entirely overlooked, as the visitor
who passes np the filthy stream will see at the head
of the opening where a man is engaged in dribbling
chloride of lime into the chasm, at the rate of about
half a pint of the disinfectant to 10,000 gallons of
the poisonous fluid. How worthless are his labours
the stench from the sewer sufficiently proclaims.
The opening of the underground railway has, no
doubt, been delayed by this accident to the Fleet
ditch—not as regards the main line, which is still
as perfect as the day it was finished—but as re-
gards the completion of the temporary station
in Victoria-street. Engines can and do now tra-
verse the whole length from Farringdon-street
to Paddington, but the intermediate stations
are not yet ready for the reception of the pas-
senger traffic. The main station at King's-
cross is as large, as lofty, and as well lighted
through its glass and iron roof as any of the great
metropolitan termini, while the arrangements for
the arrival and departure of the incoming and
outgoing traffic are as perfect as modern railway
experience can make them. The present powers of
the company only allow them to carry their line
from Paddington to Finsbury-circus, a distance of
nearly five miles, of which the first great length
from Paddington to Farringdon-street is completed,
with working junctions to the Great Western and
Northern railways. The tunnel commenced at the
Paddington terminus, and continues in an almost
direct line towards the New-road, passing beneath
the Edgeware-road, at right angles, and intersect-
ing in the same manner Lisson-grove-road and
Upper Baker-street, skirting along beneath and
just outside the •southern extremity of Regent's
Park. Thence it passes under the houses at the
eastern extremity of Park-crescent, beneath Tot-
tenham-court-road, into the New-road, and, passing
close by Euston-square, turns at King's cross to
effect a junction with the up and down lines of the
Great Northern Railway.
From King's-cross a great part of the line is an
open cutting, except for a length of about 600 yards
beneath Bagnigge-wells-road and Coppice row,
where again a tunnel intervenes. From this to the
Victoria-street station it is nearly all a fair open
cutting, and up to this point the line is ready. From
the Victoria-street station, on the dirty waste ground
beyond Holborn which is still dignified with the
name of Victoria-street, the line is soon to have two
branches, one intersecting Holborn-bill, or rather
Skinner-street, and continuing its course due south
under the site of the old Fleet Prison, to effect a
junction with the Chatham and Dover line, which
is to cross the Thames at Blackfriars. The other
and more important branch--in fact, the main line
—is to be continued under the ground north of
Smithfield and south of Charterhouse-square, and
will pass beneath Barbican into Finsbury-circus.
At this terminus it is intended, for the present
at least, to stop . though we hope that, as
the advantages
which this mode of communica-
tion will afford and the relief whin it must give
to the overcrowded traffic of our streets become
more generally known and appreciated, the share-
holdeie will find their account in extending their
branches to the chief suburban districts of the
metropolis. Along the whole of this length all the
stasions will be open-air stations except two—that
in Gower-street and that in the Edgeware-road.
Both these are underground, hut Mr. Fowler has
given them almost as much daylight as if they
stood in the air by making circular apertures in the
sides of the tunnel which communicate with the
forecourts of the gardens in the road, where the
openings are covered in with ground glass. The
light which comes through these is collected and
concentrated by the apertures being lined with
glazed tiles, which throw the rays direct upon the
arrival and departure platforms; so that, in fact,
these underground stations are almost as well let
as the others. As soon as possible after the opening
of this first length it is intended to proceed with the
main line to Finsbury. The cost of the whole un-
dertaking is estimated at about £1,100,000. lied
it been taken on a viaduct above the streets it would
have cost nearly four times this amount. Whether
or not it will be remunerative has yet to be seen,
and on this point we express no opinion. But, pay-
ing or not paying, it must be of the greatest eon-
, venience to the public, not only of the metropolis