The Sun.
London, England, 1862-02-27 00:00:00

NEWSPAPER
•'•
e\
work surrounding the poWer magazine, c tel
Hard, near Govort, which at first_ er.
F.-:
greatest alarm. Boats were despatched f."qtriklthfa s
'dockyard at Portsmouth, but the fire was subdued
by the officers and men belonging to the establish-
ment before the' boats arrived. The wind, strong
at the time, fortunately blew the fire from the
direction of the magazines, and enabled the men to,
take energetic measures to beat out the fire,wif bout
any of the sparks and pieces 9f burning furze being
blown into the interior of the establishment, where
large quantities of powder are stored. The autho •
rities have recommended that the whole of the furze
in the vicinity of the building should be cut down
and removed.

NEW TVESTMITBT.EI2

It is some comfort in the midst of the delays and
mistakes that have been made with regard to the
Kensington-road, to find that we are lil:ely to have
at least one improved thoroughfare in London 'open
in time for the Exhibition. Mr. Page is confident that •
' he will have the whole roadway of the new bridge et
stininsier finished in May next, and, eccordinr,
as he succeeds or faUs in his ends:arc:lira to this end,
he may look for praise or censure from the public.
The long work of constructing this very handsome
bridge, without for a day interrupting the carriage
or passenger traffic, has been one of no ordinary
difficulty, and to this is due much of the delay that c
has arisen in its progrea-towards completion. Old
-Westminster-bridge, ruinous and unsafe, had to be
cut almost in two to allow of the erection of the.first
portion of the structure, and then its crumbling
foundations had to be gathered from the bed of the
river before the other half could'be proceeded:with.,
'ben we,se
,hp7:-. fo; ;tiak'Wnoi-r
tip inias Pipe hap-''•
Tonle to be, out .of order or a 31'I Sewer wants eLly
-bricks inii^s erolki;lr IS-tc contrast „creditable to
Mr. Page that he has been abl?, to build his bridge .;
across the Thames without a single stoppage of
traffic of any kind. The last vestiges of the old -
structure have new been dredged outoand all the
arches of the remaining half, save the fifth and
, sixth, are completed. The two latter will have
their crowns of wrought-iron girders bolted_in next
week, and as fast as each is placed the buckle plates
for the roadway will go down. Over these plates
comes a packing of blocks of pine wood and
and over all the stone pitching pavement of fniroad;.
Up to the present the eastern half has been entirely
disconnected from that which is finished. It is
new being joined by a number of short cross girders
or stay pieces of
_cast-iron, and over these, as
soon as the timber scaffolding is removed, the
plates and roadway will be laid so as to form one com-
Plete structure of the two halves. When the two are
connected into one rigid mass the vibration now ex-
perienced on the western and smaller half will en-
tirely disappear. Before the bridge can be opened,
however, the half that is now finished and closed
must be entirely complete. A very broad .foot,
pavement will be laid down with small handsome,
'terra cotta tiles, crossbarred in contrary directions,
'to give firm foothold, and these are to be edged in
With a kerb of red granite. These terracotta tiles
are tinning much into use, as experience shows
them to be better, drier, more easily repaired, and
more durable for passenger traffic than granite itself.
After long consideration and discussion it has been
decided to place the tramways for heavy traffic to
and fro,lolie centre of the bridge, leaving two
roowaYS of 20ft. wide on each.side for the lighter
vehicles. The side next the, Houses of Parliament
is completely finished, except some ornamental
shields that can be 'bolted into the Gothic quatre-
foil sprandrils of the arches at any moment. From
this point therefore the effect of the whole struc-
ture can well be judged, and it appears to be both.
graceful and massive, and the perforated trefoil
balustrade between the granite piers has especially
a light and pleasing look, and serves as a cornice
to the whole. The conventional street lamppost
will not intrude upon this ThorOnghfare, as hand-
some lamps and posts of asst iron have been
specially designed to be in keeping with the main
architectural features of the rest of the work, and.
all the iron portions are to be painted of a pale
neutral tint, excepting only the ornamental shields
eta ha pn7:eiS ich.lo44l.4e,enzlzhzoyed---vilt
the Aiitis of *gland And Veit
opened for traffic; not he inO.a,t reniotapproacb.
towards a sinking 0t the,fier,l has taken.place,
which is somethid- to ay :whet "e:fttilltikik --
care with which London-bridge was bnilt ifiunk
more than an inch on the eastern side before it had
been open a month. When the entire bridge is
finished there will be two footways of 15 feet wide
each, two tramways in the centre of 7 feet 6 inches
wide, and two roadways for the light traffic of 20
feet each; The extreme width of London-bridge is
only 56 feet from parapet to parapet, or exactly the
space of the roadway of the new bridge exclusive of
footpaths. To enable the bridge to advance as far
as it has done, nearly 2,000,000 cubic feet of masonry
and brickwork have been removed from above and
below the river. When all is complete, the bed of
the river itself is to be dredged out of rubbish, &c.,
some 10 or 12 feet below its present level beneath.
the new arches. At present, the waterway under
the new bridge is the same as that under the old—
namely, 750 feet. But of this space nearly 150 feet
are occupied by the scaffolding, &c., connected with
the new structure, In a month or two more these
will all be removed, and for the first time within
the last. 20 years the tide will flow unimpeded up
and down the Thames. The result of this will be of
course that the tide above Westminster-bridge will
rise slightly higher than it has hitherto done, while
the scour down the river will be largely increased.
The knowledge of this fact ought to hasten the Com-
mittee of the Bridge-house Estates to an immediate
decision with reference to Blackfriars-bridge. An in-
creased scour is almost certain to lead to an increased
settlement in the most defective arches of that most
defective structure, and to an increased settlement
they cannot be exposed without the greatest risk of
their coming down in a mass, when in all human
probability most of the arches in the centre of the
stream would be certain to follow. As a stimulus
towards arriving at a decision, Mr. Page cannot do
better than get his bridge finished at once, and then
leave the public to judge of the soundness of his
opinions as to what a bridge should be. For the
sake of the public, and their convenience, we cer-
tainly hope that this opportunity will on no account
"- deferred beyond next May.—Times.

CUSTOMS AThelB6 Yearss
produced reds
turns
hnwteboa Dv.ith the
out deducting charges of collection) of
EXCISECustoms duties in 7
Lgr2038,454r65e,v52u 6, an increase of £594,143 over the receipts of
1860. Tea produced £5,521,320 ; ceffee, £442,253; cocoa,
£14,903; and sugar, £6,414,425. Corn brought no less than.
£837,633. Tobacco had to pay £5,604,032; wine, £1,219,533,
an increase of £45,428 over.lB6o ; and foreign and colonial
spirits £2,641,257, an increase of £109,000 over 1860. But
this is not the whole of the taxation on stimulants ; the
exciseman in 1861 taxed 19,698,722 gallons of homemade'
spirits retained for home consumption (a falling off, how-
ever, of 1,705,296 gallons from 1860, and of 4,179,869 fronx
1859) ; to which may be added 46,650,100 taxable
bushels of malt (4,896,050 mere than in 1860, but 1,096,189'
fewer than in 1859, and lastly 23,430,1701 b. of hops—
crop so variable that this quantity is more than double
that of 1860, but really not very greatly more than a third
of that of 1859.

CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC JOKE.—A correspon-
dent of the Union writes :—" As Dr. Gobat and Mr. Veitch
nearlp succeeded in converting half a Jew between them,
it is not unlikely that this conspicuous success may have
induced the Bishop of London to appoint Mr. Veitch to the
parish of St. Saviour's, Paddington, which, from the num-
ber of Jews resident there, has acquired the name of the
New Jerusalem." We are glad to find our ecclesiastical
contemporaries—the Guardian eludes the patagraPh—in
such excellent spirits, having received the impression that
very serious matters, demanding all their attention, wero
pending.
LADvERTIsEmr.yr.)--Tionoway's Pills.—Rostoration to
Health.—When disordered action is first noticed, an early
resort to these purifying pills will set all right again. They
improve the appetite, strengthen the stomach, and overcome
all its difficulties. No medicine is so Well adapted for the
sedentary and studious—they fortify the nerves, and give
universal tone to the system. Be the malady what it may,
Holloway's purifying pills will abate its severity and
abridge its duration. They extract all poisonous matters
from the blood and expel all gross humours from the frame.
way at once to these pills, which, acting throughefieial
ah
Biliousness, flatulency, nausea, distention, and constipation
a most
beneficial
give
n3ecnum of the constitution, exercise
fluolico over the entire body,