The Sun.
London, England, 1853-03-24 00:00:00

CITY CENTRAL RAILWAY TERMINUS.

Yesterday about fifty gentlemen, including partners in
several of the most eminent houses in the City, attended
the Lord Mayor, as a deputation from many of the City
wards, requesting his lordship would convene a special
meeting of the Common Council to receive a petition,
praying the Court to give their support to Mr. Pearson's
railway and street improvements.
Mr. MILLARD, common councilman of Bread-street
Ward, introduced the deputation. He reminded his
lordship that at a former Court to consider this question
he bad been somewhat pertinaciously and discourteously
contradicted when he stated that the great houses in the
ward were in favour of the project. Before he made
that assertion he had called upon many of the leading
firms to ascertain their sentiments. Not being a com-
mercial man himself, he had deemed it his duty, as the
representative of commercial men, to consult his consti-
tuents upon the great commercial features of this case,
for the guidance of his conduct in the vote he should
give. Having been so contradicted, he had convened a
meeting of the ward at their hall of meeting, and the
petition which the deputation were about to present was
the result. It had been signed by 86 firms, constituting
181 of the 205 parliamentary voters of the ward, and 86
out of the 106 on the list of voters for the Common
Council. He would read a few of the names on the first
sheet of the petition :----Messrs. Leaf, Smith, and Co. ;
Rogers, Lowrey, Holyland, and Co. ; Gillett, Foster,
and Co. ; Ellis, Everington, and Co. ; J. and C. Boyd
and Co. ; Swan, Pearce, and Co. ; Cook, Sons, and Co.;
Robert Owtram-and Co. ; J. F. Pawson and Co. ; Kerr
and. Scott ; Liddiard and Co. ; R. Salomons and Sons ;
George Smith and Sons ; John Mair, Sons, and Co. ;
Hugh Andrews, Sons, and Gee ; Westron, Dignam, and
Co. ; Robert Johnson and Nephew ; Lupton, Hoot*
and Co. • Lindsay, Bristow, and Co. ; C. Candy and Co. ;
Groucock,i Copestake, Moore, and Co.; Watson, Jones,
and Gibbins ; Berens, Blumberg, and Co. ; John Hor-
rocks and Co. ; Welch, Margetson and Co. ; Poland,
Meredith, and Co. ; Fishers and Robinson ; and Richards
and Co.

Mr. HALT said the great commercial firms of Bread-
street Ward were not the only persons who felt a strong
interest in this measure. The inhabitants of every part
of the City, and every man who had occasion to visit the
City, must feel a deep interest in the success of the un-
dertaking. The Temple, with which he was connected,
was part and parcel of the City. The barristers in the
Temple and Sergeant's-inn, with Sir Fitzroy Kelly at
their head, had signed the petition, and he understood
it had received the signatures of several thousands of
citizens of all classes in all parts of the City. Gentle-
men were present with petitions containing the names
of some of the most eminent banking, mercantile, and
wholesale and retail houses in several of the other wards.
He would read the names of a few. One petition had
the names of George Hitchcock and Co. ; Longman,
Brown, and Co. ; Simpkin, Marshall, and Co. ; Whit-
taker and Co. ; Hamilton, Adams, and Co. ; H. and S.
Orr and Co. ; John Graham, Ludgate-hill ; Samuel
Block and Sons, Newgate-street ; Hanson, Smith, and
Stevens ; Clarke and Sons ; Morrison, Dillon, and Co. ;
and Bradbury, Greatorex, and Co. On another petition
he saw the names of Streatfield, Laurance, and Morti-
more ; Boatts and Ellis ; Fisher and King ; John and
Charles White and Co. and Baker, Ruck; and Jennings.
On another petition there appeared the names of San-
derson, Sandeman, and Co. ; Overend, Gurney, and Co. ;
L. de Rothschild ; Barclay, Bevan, Tritton, and Co. ;
Robarts, Curtis, and Co. ; Barnett, HOare, and Co. ;
Williams, Deacon, and Co. ; and Lubbock, Forster, and
Co. Another petition, he understood, had been signed
by Smith, Payne, and Smiths, Prescotts and Co., and
several other banking firms. The petition was not only
signed by persons of the first consequence, but ample
time and opportunity had been afforded for the full
consideration of the whole matter before a single signa-
ture had been applied for. At the request of his friend Mr.
Millard he had assisted in its preparation, and, from in- ,
formation supplied by the gentlemen of Bread-street
Ward, a series of names, twenty-five in number, had
been printed and extensively circulated, with copies of the
petition. Many thousands of persons had already at-
tached their signatures merchants, traders, and profes-
sional men, from Aldgate to Temple-bar' and from Bishops-
gate to London-bridge. In fact, as he understood, if
time could be given to collect them, the signatures of
, the whole city could be obtained in suppolt o the mea-
-1 sure. The petition, it would be perceived, did not ask
4,he corporation to advance money to construct the rail-
road. All the petitioners requested was that the Com-
mon Council would give the undertaking their encour-
agement and support, and would contribute their fair
proportion of the funds required to remove the Holborn
hill nuisance, and to effect the other street improvements
which required for the public convenience, quite irre-
spective of the proposed railroad, but which, if made
contemporaneously with the construction of the railroad
and terminus, would enable the corporation and the
company to effect both objects much more cheaply and
efficiently than if they had to be carried out by means
of a divided capital and a divided management. The
benefits the community would derive from the combina-
tion of railroad and street improvements, in the manner
Mr. Pearson proposed, were of the utmost importance
to the citizens, and deeply affected their best interests,
commercial, social, sanitary, and moral. No man could
regard the crowded streets of the city without feeling
that trade must deeply suffer from the impediments
created by the vast mass of cabs, omnibuses, and rail-
road vans constantly passing through the streets, occa-
sioned, to a considerable extent, by the distance of the
railroad termini from the centre of business. The city of
London about to learn wisdom before it was too late
from Liverpool, Manchester, Edinburgh, Birmingham,
and other towns. The citizens of London asked for the
same railroad facilities as the inhabitants of these places
had obtained, and they looked to their representatives in
the Common Council as the proper persons to assist in
procuring for them these advantages, while they were to
be had. The Lord Mayor (Mr. Haly said), would recol-
lect the struggle the corporation had made to retain the
cattle market in Smithfield. That questio vex' ta had been
set at rest by Parliament ; but there was another, quite
as important, to which public attention, they might de-
pend upon it, would soon be directed. It was impossible
for them to permit Newgate-street, and Gracechurch-
street to be blocked up with meat vans and carts. The
ground on which the meat and hide markets stood was,
he was informed, in the most valuable parts of the City,
and as sites for warehouses and shops would fetch large
sums, quite adequate to the compensation of the owners ;
whilst the markets might be removed to cheap ground
over the railway, and in direct communication with the
intended cattle market in Copenhagen-fields. The
proximity of the great carcase market in the City to the
cattle market in Smithfield had afforded one of the
strongest arguments for the retention of them both.
The present plan, by securing a rapid, cheap, and fre-
quent railway communication, would place them, prac-
tically, close to each other, and it appeared to him of
the deepest importance to the perpetuity and prosperity
of both. A railroad into the densely populated parts of
London, like the City and Clerkenwell, would afford the
means, and the only means, of solving the difficult pro-
blem of extramural interments. By means of cheap and
frequent trains, with funeral carraiges at stated hours,
the humbler classes might have the mournful privilege
of attending the funerals of deceased objects of their
affection without the sacrifice of time and money that
would otherwise place such a privilege wholly beyond
their reach. The uses of the proposed railroad, as a
means of enlarging the number of persons who might
have the advantages of suburban residences, could not
be too highly estimated. This might be called an omni-
bus line. By means of frequent and cheap trains upon
such a line, numbers of the mechanics and artisans de-
pendent upon the City for their occupation might be
conveyed nightly four or five miles in the country,where
they would be able to recruit their exhausted strength.
and where their families might reside free from those
sources of moral and physical pollution which abounded
in the crowded courts and alleys of the City ; while the
ground on which their wretched dwellings stood would
fetch a large price for the formation of new streets,
and the construction of business premises which the in-
creasing trade' of the City would require. Lord
Shaftesbury had obtained a committee of the House of
Lords to consider this subject, and he trusted that Mr.
Pearson would be examined before that committee. His
lordship, as chairman of the Society for Improving the
Dwellings of the Poor had already investigated the sub-
je6,, and after hearing Mr. Pearson, and examining his
plan, his lordship hr,d pronounced strongly in its favour,
as an important agent for the improvement of the moral,
social, and sanitary condition of the working classes. The
means of facilitating the transmission of letters from the
post-office to the northern railway stations, which the
project contemplated, was an affair of the highest
portance, not to the City or the metropolis alone, but to
the nation at large, and this part of the plan must re-
ceive the consideration it merited. On behalf of the
petitioners he had to request his lordship would name
an early day for the presentation of the petition to the
Common Council ; and he hoped the corporation, as ad-
ministrators of vast public revenues entrusted to them
for the benefit of the
representativescitizensa,nwdowuelduldfeenletthtereda7virteh-
of a body of petitioners that
levity the
fi'r said to represent the wealth, intelli-
gence, bed
industry of this great commercial city.
gence, an
and Mr. PATTEN, as members of the
sponsibility of their position,
Mr. B
nd expressed themselves warmly in
the Lord Mayor,
a
4,ol,l3rilattroduced gentlemen of the deputation to
that, as a member of the firm of J.
Mr. WALKER said
for many
engaged years in exten-
sive commercial tran
eak uon this subject, and he
himself well qualified to f;i3
favour of the petition.
had no hesitation in benefit upon the trade
project would confer imrn
n which were now seriously
sayinge thatee the execution of the
and commerce of the City,
of the leading thorough-
ng
impeded
connecting
imp the
the metropolisthe
the with the mann-
All our principal
facturing districts of the country.
and if the same
branches of trade were on the increase,
facilities'were granted to the
City as were enjoyed else-
where, the hp
readield by
y
etitio in ny
citizens would not fear comwever,n an- a
in-
of the markets of the world. It was,o
the City,
that
le condition of successful trade
dispensable redress the
remedial measures should be adopted to
that
evils that surrounded them. He must confess
growing
that he had heard of no proposal calculated to effect
this object except the great measure for which the peti-
tioners prayed.
Mr. LoWRY (of the firm of Rogers, Lowry, Holyland,
and Co.) confirmed the statements of Mr. Walker, and
said that if the corporation permitted this opportunity of
improving the 'City to pass by, it would entail upon
them indelible disgrace. It was an unfortunate circum-
stance that the mercantile and wholesale firms of the
City were not represented in the Common Council, and
that the commercial interests of the City failed to re-
ceive the attention to which they were entitled. Where
the fault rested, and how it was to be remedied, was not
a question then under discussion ; but, as well for the