The Sun.
London, England, 1846-11-14 00:00:00

PRIVY COUNCIL.

Lord JOHN RUSSELL, Lord LANSDOWNE, Lord
MORPETII, and several other Ministers, left Padding-
ton at half-past one o'clock this afternoon, by a spe-
ci-a.l train, for Windsor Castle, to attend a Privy
Council, appointed to be held by her MAJESTY at
half-past two o'clock.

Lord JOHN RUSSELL and the other Cabinet
nisters are expected to return to town this evening.

Very frequently permanent and extensive advan-
tages arise out of temporary and local inconvenience.
It is proverbial that the great fire of 1666, though
grievously calamitous to the then citzens of the Bri-
tish capital, has been productive of the most ines-
timable improvements. By that terrible visitation
multitudes ware beggared and rendered house-
less, the mercantile transactions of the metropolis
were for a period in a state of ruinous stagnation,
and the scene of so many domestic comforts
and of so much civic prosperity remained for a
considerable time a chaos of smouldering rabbis
and rafters. With these unquestionable miseries,
however, were associated a variety of undoubted
benefits. By that conflagration the frightful scourge
by which the City had been decimated, and the hor-
rors of which have been recorded with so much of
terrible naturalness by DEFOE, was thoroughly era
dieated ; the atmosphere, which had been poi-
soned by the plague, was thereby effectually purified;
the narrow ramifications of the thoroughfares, those
miserable and dilapidated bye-lanes which the insuffi-
cient drainage of generations had rendered so infec-
tious to their inhabitants, were utterly demolished ;
and the beggarly wooden and antiquated tenements
which constituted London were exchanged for a more
salubrious and commodious arrangement of domicile;.
That gigantic calamity, of which the Monument is the
splendid and perpetual memento, was in reality the
forerunner and originator of the noblest benefactions
that have ever been conferred upon this vast metro-
polis. By it the appearance of London was beauti-
fied, and the salubrity of London ensured ; by it,
moreover, the sanatory condition of millions of citi-
z-ms was materially advanced, and their cleanliness
And contentment rendered matters of possibility.
The same principle is observable in operation
not merely in an artificial state of existence, but
throughout the domain of nature. Out of apparent
evil frequently arises positive good. What was thus
beneficial on an enormous scale in the middle of the
seventeenth century, we are persuaded will be mani-
fested in the middle of the nineteenth century, on a
scale much more contracted, but locally of tantamount

importance.
In accordance with the decision which has been
long since and significantly pronounced by the
public, Westminster-bridge is to be completely
rooted out of the Thames, and a more convenient and
graceful structure erected in a more suitable locality.
The repeated mishaps which have befallen that
building have ultimately elicited this determi-
nation to improve the neighbourhood. It would
be frivolous, if not absolutely impertinent, to
enlarge upon the advisability of such a proceeding
as far, at least, as the destruction of the present bridge
is concerned. Anything more unwieldy, more
precarious, more perilous, more awkwardly situated,
or productive of more exorbitant and unnecessary
outlay, was certainly never erected in the capital of
a prosperous empire in civilised times. Since the
period of its first unfortunate erection Westminster-
bridge has interfered with the navigation of the river,
it has placed the lives and limbs of the lieges in in-
cessant and peculiar jeopardy, it has injured the
synimetry of the neighbourhood, and, beyond all, has
been a continual and unremunerative drain upon the
public purse to an extent almost incredible. From
the ill-omened Act, passed in the ninth year of his
Majesty King. GEORGE 11., intituled "An Act
for building a bridge across the River Thames,
from the new Palace-yard in the city of
Westminster to the opposite shore in the county
of Surrey," enormous sums have been perio-
dically expended, or, as we may say, literally sunk,
first in the construction, and subsequently in the re-
pair of this ill-starred structure. Alternately the
patience and forbearance of the community have been
severely tested by the alternate settlement of the
starlings an inch or so deeper in the bottom of the
Thames, and the cor_sequent settlement of so many
additional thousands sterling.
What was intrir ,ically intolerable has been since
rendered more so, relatively and cimparatively.
Since the commencement of the New Palace at
Westminster it has been painfully manifest that
the cumbersome bridge which there connects the
shires of Surrey and Middlesex will constitute not
merely a detestable eyesore, but a most indisputable