The Sun.
London, England, 1847-05-15 00:00:00

GROUP XVII.

(Continued from our Afternoon Edition of yesterday.)
GRMAT NO72.II4RERN (DEVIATIONS PROM
LONDON TO GRANTHAM).
Mr. Packe, the Deputy-Chairman of the Company, and
Mr. Charles Miller, ex-Mayor of Grantham, were also ex-
amined in favour of the line.

This closed the case of the promoters; when that for the
opposition was proceeded with.
Mr. Welby, M.P. for Grantham, was then examined, and
gave evidence as to the injury which would be caused to Mr.
Oastler's house by the proposed deviation.
Mr. Wood, the architect who built the house and Mr.
o.lstler's agent, confirmed this evidence.
The Committee then adjourned till twelve o'clock on
Monday.

GROUP XVIII.
The Committee met this morning at twelve o'clock—the
Earl of Lincoln in the chair—when
Mr. TALBOT replied on behalf of the Great Western Corn-
pany, and, after clearing away all the erroneous suppositions,
that he or his clients intend any the slightest disrespect to
the inhabitants of Cheltenham, proceeded to say that he be-
lieved that they were fully entitled to have all their com-
plaints freely and thoroughly investigated. The view which
he had always taken was :hat a priori, most astounding,
that, in this happy =intr.', which had been the parent of
such eminent engineering skill, there should be found slush _-
case of difficulty in Cheltenham, that men like Mr.'
who possessed not only a European but an eis...te reputa-
tion, were unable to grapple with it. As ea Englishman, he
must say that it would to him be a :natter of affliction if
any such insurmountable obstacle could exist. Here there
had been not only the talents of Mr. Brunel, but of Mr.
Cubitt, Sir J. Rennie. Mr. ;eimpson, :and Mr. Hawkshaw
applied to investigate th> causes of this difficulty, and to
ascertain the best means of surmounting it. But the doubt
which he entertained, if he entertained it at all, was al-
together removes' when he remembered that, peculiar as the
soil of Cheltennam might be—and peculiar it certainly was—.
the very same difficulty had been overcome by Mr. Stephen-
son in his :vorks on the North-Western Railway at Camden-
town. -ewe was free to confess, in his opening speech to the
Committee, now about nanonth ago, he had been somewhat
rash, forhe had mixed hilifself and Mr. Brunel up with things
which sere different from each other in their character,
and had stated, as, indeed, he must state now, namely, that
the passage through Cheltenham was, and was intended to
be, neither more nor less than a common railway cutting;
and if there was a difficulty at all from the pressure of the
wets?, it surely would be ascertained by the present condi-
tion, of the sewer that had been formed by the construction of
the Gloucester Railway. They had proved the level of the
'sewers ; they had called Mr. Paul, who had been the sur-
veyor of the sewers, as well as several other witnesses, and
those witnesses had proved that the level of the sewer was
precisely the same la 1846 as it was in 1845, and that in
1845 it was precisely the same as it was in the v: or 1836.
It was true that there had been some evidence which proved
that the height of the water in the wells had been altered.
Bat was it likely to be otht tevis. , when, during the last
few years, there had been a population growing up cf tens
of thousands, and when every man who sank his
well lower than Isis neighbour, robbed him of the quantity of
water that he had previously enjoyed ? Why, there was pre-
cieen- a similar case going on in another room, where the
Liverpool corporation had shown that they had become
alarmed by the abstraction of their usual supply of water,
and they had sunk a well down into the sandstone, and had
succeeded in draining the springs for three thousand feet
on each side of it. And all the witnesses who had been ad •
duced from Cheltenham had each stated that when they had
sunk their well lower, they had each recovered the
water that had been abstracted by the formation of the
sewer. Further than this, it had been put in evidence by
Mr. Dawke, that only at a distance of 374 yards from the
Gloucester Railway, the water absolutely stood higher in the
sand than it did in the cutting of the line; and every engi-
neer who had been called on the other side had all, without
a single exception, repudiated every notion that the water
would be permanently abstracted. Mr. Wood, Mr.
Locke, Mr. Leather. and Mr. Gibbs, had all said
that, although the work would be difficult and expen-
sive, yet, atter all, the water would not be permanently,
even if it were temporarily, abstracted; and even Mr.
Stephenson himself had allowed that the level of the water
would not be permanently altered. In truth, it was the wit-
nesses fur the Great Western project who had stated most
strongly the difficulties which would have to be encountered.
Mr. Brunel's plan was to pump ot. tire water from the exca-
vation by small portions at a time, so that the in-
stance which had been adduced by Mr. Stephenson of the
pressure cf forty feet at the Kilsby tunnel was not
a case at all in point, arid he must charge that gentleman
with something like disiHgenuousness in making such a
charge. It had been asserted, from the letter of Mr. Close,
that the water had been reduced eight feet in the line of its
level, but on cross-examination that gentleman had ad-
mitted that hie letter was awkwardly expressed, and that a
casual reader might have so understood him, but that in
reality it was not so. This was his answer
to the Cheltenham case, and he firmly believed
that if the respectable inhabitants of that place
beard such eminent men as Mr. Locke and Mr. Gibbs state
that it was merely a matter of expense to the company,
the whole of their opposition would be immediately with-
drawn. Then, as to that great objection respecting the station
at Cheltenham, it had been shown that the flow there was
upwards instead of downwards; and even if there were, as
was represented, a pressure at that point of 5 feet 9 inches,
a flooring of 2 feet 41/2 inches would be amply sufficient.
And with respect to the assertion that the water could
never pass under the railway in the way which was
supposed, ]lr. Stephenson himself had allowed, that
even if the piling did prevent its crossing at one particular
plane, it would follow the bend of the work and ultimately
find its way after the same course. Then as to the attack
on the estimates, an attack which he had hoped never to see,
and which of all things he least expected from a company
of such railway experience as the North-Western, he would
show that it ws.e utterly groundless and insufficient
for its object. The works had been estimated at
60,0001., and the land at 85,0001. ; but Mr. Haynes
and Mr. Dawke had together made out that those
were quite insufficient, and that they ought for all
these purposes to be at least 287,0001.; but evon Mr.
Stephenson himself had not ventured to attack these calcu-
lations; and even it the allegations of excess were correct, if
it was true OA the works would cost 90,000/, more than
they had been estimated, there was still an ample supply in
the million which Mr. Brunel had taken as the capital for the
line, for out of it there were 200,000/. for which no occupation
had been provided. He had made these remarks, because
he really expected that the main ground of objection would
be the abstraction of the water. As to the assertion that
there would be great injury to the house property in Chel-
tenham, Mr. Brunel had shown that there were only six
houses which would in any way be affected, at least injuri-
ously, iu the whole of the town, and with the present mania
for central stations, it was impossible to prevent some injury;
but, taking the main case which had been brought forward—
he meant that of the Wesleyan chapel and the place of
worship used by the followers of LadyHuntizigdon,—he thought
the Committee would not consider it to be of much import-
ance, when they recollected that since the construction of the
line, a gorgeous ecclesiastical edifice had been erected within
fifty-five yards of the Great Western Railway. This, he be.
lieved, would close all that he had to say respecting the
Cheltenham case, and he would now proceed to unfold the
second volume of this same work, of which one was quite
sufficient, and to enter upon what he believed to be the real
merits of the case. He was not blind to what was passing
around him, and allowing for them all the importance of the
representations in the fourth estate of the realm, and
acceding at once to the assertions of the difficulty of
raising capital at the present time, he would at the same time
express his conviction that it was in no way applicable to
the opposition of the North-Western Company ' • for if it were
applicable to all, it was equally applicable to both companies,
and was easily to be met by the insertion of a clause giving a
power to construct the line in tive or six years instead of
three. He trusted, therefore, that the Committee would at
once come to a decision upon the matter. There must
be railway communication to Cheltenham. That was
a matter upon which no one could entertain a
doubt, and that being the case, the only question was
by whom it, should be made. There had already
been ten veers of litigation, and a very expensive litigation
it had been. Then, on what principles were they to decide?
Ilildyard had, in the first blow which he levelled, opened
the whole subject of which gauge was to be preferred. The
Great Western Company had already a line front Fish-
guard, through South Wales, and had indeed opened up the
whole
ho
sof the country to this district, with a view to shorten
Bill odif ttahnact paeeboemtwene; Ireland and Ole metropolis; and if the
were to be granted, there would be an
unbroken and continuous communication all the way ;
whereas, if they interposed the narrow gauge, if they did
freak the communication, they would at least very seriously
cripple it. That this was a question of immense importance
to the Forest of Dean there could be no doubt, for if this
Grew
must of necessity
break of gauge were allowed,
be cut off; and that coal which
pound from the
pocket of the purchaser at CheltenZma Ought, according
to be sold
OnOf tltileeirinrearralPo 'l,ll effinctaes
te
rthere was
atto tih7,es.
2redp.resaenLamti.ons
d
y coalfields,
gauge, already access to the Derbysh
and only allow the Staffordshire coal to come b
Committee
gauge, and they would at once insulate the Foreset
Bill, and
yo:nththt
much as if there was noreraaimlbwlea
and the
coal as
bourhood at all. But allow thehepwest,
make CI broad gauge line from t
would give, not 0n.., Iv in Cheltenham, but in Oxford also, a
The
fthe different districts.
to discuss the legal effect
fair competition for the coals o
Learee,l Counsel then went on
of the report of the Boa' • I of Trade on the aspectiv
merit of the gauges, and stated that a clause wXr inserted
to show what the gauge should be, and unless the Committee
were prepared practically to repeal an Act of Parliament,
which they were only called upon to administer to the _
satis-
faction of the public, the Great Western Company would
get to London by their own broad gauge line, and
westward of Cheltenham there was an uninterrupted
chain of communication on the same gauge. The question
then was, on what principle were they to act in joining these
two portions of the line hetw,4-, Fisliguard and the metro-
polis. Mr. Ilildyard had rig,..:y stated that public enter-
prise had taken its tone from the reports of the Board of Trade,
and those reports had evidently shown that if the commu-
nication between the Welsh coal-fields and the manufacturing
districts of the north werenecessary, it was equally advisable
that the communication east and west should be on the
broad gauge. Mr. Talbot then read the Earl of Dalhousie's
remarks in the report, to show how Newport, Swansea, and
other places would be affected, and to prove that there wag
an absolute requisition for a coast line to bring them into