The Sun.
London, England, 1847-06-28 00:00:00

Alan% Ant,

LONDON, MONDAY, JUNE 28, 1847.

Whatever may be the ultimate decision as to the
conservancy of the river Thames, it is most important
to the national interests that the authority should be

so distributed as to ensure its employment by corn-
_

petent individuals. Although Lord GEORGE BEN.
TINCK is disposed to lay enormous stress upon the
circumstance that the prerogatives of the City of
London Corporation, in regard to the navigation of
the king of English rivers, extended as far back as
the arrival of WILLIAM the Conqueror, and although
the Noble Lord the Representative of Lynn argued
therefrom that it was impolitic to deprive the Common
Councilmen of a right sanctified by the accordance
of centuries, we still continue of opinion that the
Government is qualified to interfere in any manner it
may deem advisable. That such, moreover, is the
opinion of Parliament was tolerably well shown on
Friday by the majority of sixty-eight in favour of the
recommittal of the Bill, whereby the power of the con-
servancy board is proposed to be shared between the
Corporation and the Government. According to the
original proposition, as stated by the Secretary to the
Admiralty, it will be remembered that the Committee
of the House of Commons considered it necessary
for the proper protection of the public interest that
" new blood" should be infused into the manage-
ment. With this intention the number of the
Conservancy Board—limited in the rough draft of

the improvement to nineteen members, namely,
the Lord Mayor, five Aldermen, and thirteen

Common Councilmen—was proposed to be further
restricted to fifteen, and those fifteen to be
selected in the following :manner :—ten of the
commissioners by the City, and the remainder by the
State. Seeing that this very reasonable proposition
was rejected with a somewhat impertinent prompti-
tude, it was obvious that the House could
not, without compromising its dignity, con-
descend to make any particular or immediate
modification. A perception of the indelicacy of their
former refusal had, however, been subsequently mani-
fested by the Corporation, that body consenting that
the five disputed commissioners, though still chosen
by!the City of London, as previously required, should
be nominated with an unlimited veto, and a power of
removal reserved to the Crown. In accordance with
the proposition thus introduced to Parliament by Mr.
WARD, the Thames Conservancy Bill was formally
recommitted, by a division of ninety-two against
twenty -four.
According to this distribution of authority in the
nomination of a conservancy board, the Government
virtually retain a restrictive power over five out of
the fifteen commissioners. Hence the Corporation
cannot as formerly paddle their delegates up and
down the river periodically without any, profounder
trepidation than as to whether the sturgeon is of
average plumpness or the Lafitte of undiminished flavour.
The shadow of the Executive will hang like a Nemesis
over the barge of commissioners in the event of any
enormous nuisance upon either bank being winked at
for the sake of a lucrative consideration. A whole-
some remembrance of the scrutinising supervision of
the Legislature will henceforth impart a sort of di-
gestive fillip to the grilled bones of the Conservancy
supper.
Hitherto the rights of the community generally
have been merged into the rights of the Corporation
individually; the interests of the civic authorities have
predominated over the noble interests of the nation ;
the Thames has been regarded rather as the
" silent highway" of London than as the channel
for the flux and reflux of the national enterprise. A
necessity has gradually manifested itself for the re-
versal of this injudicious subserviency of the kingdom
at large to a local municipality. The State has itself
taken the initiative in this laudable reformation, and
the City has at length recognised the advisability of
yielding to the imperative requirements of the age.
We cannot but regard such an arrangement as the
one pencilled out by the Secretary to the Admiralty
as a species of corollary to the measures of sanatory
improvement.
However great may be the opportunity afforded for
the facilitation of transit upon the river, however
worthy of encouragement may be the schemes for the
adornment of its banks, we do conceive that the in-
vestigations instituted by the Conservancy Board might
tend very materially to the disclosure of the localities
which particularly require the attention of the sana-
tory Commissioners. Although the metropolis is for
a while excluded from the benefit of the innovations
ensured by the operation of the Health of Towns'
Bill introduced by Lord AIORPETII, it were absurd to
imagine that that exclusion is to be perpetual. It
were absurd to suppose that an exclusion dictated by
a temporary emergency is an exclusion based upon
a settled principle of non-interference in the filth,
and the darkness, and the drought, and the atmos-
pheric stagnation, and the malignant diseases that
desolate and disfigure the more densely populated dis-
tricts in London. Foremost among these neglected
localities—foremost amongst them in respect of the
ravages caused by the deleterious multiplication of
their evils—are many of the rookeries contiguous to
the river. Rotherhithe, and even Lambeth, and
Wapping, and Deptford, and that most unsophisti-
cated region of depravity and absolutely triumphant
dirt which is depicted in such a light of horrible
reality in the closing chapters of " Oliver Twist," are
among the number. Besides having its navigation
grievously obstructed by many unsightly and cum-
brous structures, the Thames is rendered, espe-
cially at low-water mark, pestiferous by the
aggregation and stagnation of ill-regulated
drains. Beyond this the Thames, instead of
affording the most magnificent approach to London,
is essentially the back-way into the capital of
England. Floating up the river there is not a
single quay with the exception of the one
fronting the Custom-house to arrest the attention
of the foreigner. Saving for its superb bridges, the
view presented on travelling either up or down the
Thames is somewhat as uninteresting, somewhat as
filthy, and somewhat as beggarly as that visible from
the window of a Black wall railway carriage, when
flying between chimney-pots and the back yards of
back streets. Degradation, rottenness, and pauper-
ism are, to all appearance, flourishing where one
would most expect the reverse to be visible. In the
removal of these numerous and extraordinary evils
from the vicinity of the Thames, the Conservancy
Commissioners will long find an ample and honourable
occupation. _

The case of MARY DAWSON, which was brought
before the House of Commons on Friday, affords an
additional illustration of the mischiefs occasioned by
entrusting private magistrates, who have had no legal
education whatsoever, and who are in no way quali-
fied for the execution of the extraordinary j urisdic-
tion conferred on them, with the power of summary
conviction. We are not disposed to charge the coin-
mittoingumaetagistrates with any wilful abuse of their
authority
influenced
; we cannot conceive that they could have
b
cgeidrlb, yanadnywematlhiecrioeufosrfeeerleiandgilyageaoinnesut
concur in
unfortunate
the acquittal pronounced by the Home Secretary as
to the existence of any imnportopteorpmerocteii%ve.es othnatthtehier
part ; but it is impossible
victim has suffered
misapprehensionor as if they had
been actually guilty of the most corrupt conduct.
The girl, who was dragged from her work, and.
hurried a prisoner through the public streets, and
finally confined for more than three weeks in a House
of Correction, associated with thieves and prostitutes,
will receive but little satisfaction for her sufferings,
from the fact that they were occasioned be-
' cause her judges were unacquainted with the