The Sun.
London, England, 1853-07-27 00:00:00

THE RIVER THAMES.

(Prom the Times. )

Lord Palmerston is now Home Secretary, and, though
his heart may be on the Danube, his hand must be in
the Holborn sewers. The diplomatic ability of the
noble lord was visible, perhaps, in the fearless flow of
his language, in the facility with which he complimented
the Corporation of London on their well-known readi-
ness to promote internal reforms, and in the perfect free-
dom of his assumptions on this and every other subject
which an ordinary mortal might have found embarrassing.
Henceforth the " city authorities" will be in nobody's
way ; in fact, if we are to believe our Home Secretary,
there never has been and never could be "a body of
men more willing, more desirous, and more capable of
effectually co-operating with any branch of her Majesty's
Government than the Corporation of the city of Lon-
don." However, this co-operation his lordship has now
plainly bespoken for two or three plain objects, and we
rejoice to see that the purification of the Thames is at
length made a " Cabinet question." As far as Govern-
ment resolutions go—and the India Bill shows they can
go a good way—we can assure ourselves of a sweet and
wholesome stream, and, perhaps of a clear atmosphere
besides.

Lord Palmerston quoted a poet of the last century in
proof the translucent purity of the metropolitan Thames
only two or three centuries ago, and, having character-
ised its present condition as one of "liquid mud," in-
vited the metropolitan members to aid the Ministry in re-
storing a better state of things. We trust the design
may go further than words, but even the words were not
uncalled for. There is a certain class of men who,
partly from eccentricity of opinion, partly from love of
contrariety, and partly perhaps from professional pique,
persist in maintaining either that the Thames is not im-
pure, or that it can never be made any purer. Very
eminent engineers, in fact, have considered our river as
the American considered the falls of Niagara—" a hand-
some water privilege," of which the natural use, how-
ever, is not to turn a mill, but to carry off the sewage of
the city. They describe the Thames as the "proper
outfall, ' as the fittest and most obvious receptacle for
the contents of a thousand drains, and assure us that
the results occasionally experienced in seasons like the
present are due only to the mud upon the banks, and
not to the water of the stream. Sir William Cubitt
assured a select committee the other day that " nobody
ever smelt the Thames—what they smelt was the dryize-
mud, and the stench from 50 sewers opening into it with
wide open mouths." We incline to Sir William's opi-
nion, and so, we suppose, will most other people. It is
the very gist and pith of all we have been saying for the
last six years, that the Thames would be sweet and clear
if we did not pollute it, and that our mischief was
made infinitely worse by the tidal character of the
stream. Of course, we do not smell "the Thames,"
but we smell what we pour into the Thames, and the
Thames, by its rising and falling, gives the greatest
possible effect to our proceeding. But what is to be
done. Tide waits upon no men, not even upon
titled engineers, and whatever we throw into a tidal
river, whether at high or low water mark, must inevit-
ably be washed backwards and forwards under our noses.
Sir William Cubitt appears inclined, as the best specific 4
to give the Thames a " deep channel and no dry shores ;
which points, we presume, to something like a continu-
ous embankment of the kind we were describing the
other day. But would this be cheaper or more practi-
cable than intercepting drains ?
In speaking of our advantages and our shortcomings,
Lord Palmerston related a characteristic anecdote of the
famous sculptor Canova on his visit to England some
years ago. This distinguished artist was "greatly struck
with London." He saw in London a variety of conveni-
ences which, under his own native skies and amid Italian
palaces, he looked for in vain. He admired, first of all,
our pavements, then the
privacy and comfort of our dwel-
ling houses, then the order prevailing in our streets,
and, finally, the security of life and property. So im-
pressed was he with the value of these advantages that
thtehi pplagceo. n lylie staggered him,
could not get
over the universal blackness around him, but lie declared
he actually broke out into a hyperbolical panegyric upon
aßnrdi British
that h
w architecture.
the
colour Oonfe
that if London could be whitened it would be an
" earthly paradise." Lord Palmerston regards this con-
summation as not impossible, and we remember that some
time ago a commencement was actually made at St. Paul's.
We trust, however, that the " whitening," whenever it
comes to pass, may not be that of the sepulchre. It
is better to have good drains and wholesome streets
than polished marbles and brilliant facades.
There really is no kind of reason why London should
not be made both healthy and
agreeable as well as
wealthy and great. Our soil is as good, for the most
pert, as that of a model village ; our atmoshphere, like
our river, is pure enough, except where we pollute it ;
nor is there anything whatever in our situation to swell
the rate of mortality within metropolitan limits. All
our disadvantages are remediable, and we are glad to
acknowledge that steps have been taken towards the
remedy. Our streets are broader and more convenient
• than formerly, new parks and new bridges are now