The Sun.
London, England, 1856-12-15 00:00:00

METROPOLITAN STREETS EXTRA-
ORDINARY!

It has been rather maliciously said that the Me-
tropolitan Board of Works ought to be called the
Board of Words. If they really deserve that title,
now is their opportunity for a display of the divine
gift of language. As all the beasts of the field
were brought before our first father to be named,
all the streets of this great metropolis are to have
their names reviewed by the conscript fathers of
the city. It is a stupendous literary labour ; and,
judging from the report of the committee .ap-
pointed to inquire into the subject, it is beyond
our power to comprehend how the Board are to
overcome the difficulties of their task. We are
told that streets ought never to be called after the
names of places, as there is a chance of letters be-
ing in this way forwarded to some distant town or
village, instead of to the terrace or square which
has received the same appellation. Then, alas for
genius ! the names of our " poets, painters, states-
men, warriors, judges, divines, and other eminent
men" are all used up, and we are so hard pressed
for titles that we have 62 George-streets, 55 Charles-
streets, 45 John-streets, and the other Royal and
ducal !names in proportion. What then is to be
done ? Where are the new names to come from,
for the committee declare that the repetition of
titles is an absurdity which cannot any longer be
tolerated ? There are not less than 571 streets pos-
sessed of only 17 names, and the committee are go-
ing to begin with this batch. It is cruel to keep
us in suspense. The streets are to be called, not
after men, not after places, but after what ? Who
does not know that the most arduous task of the
novelist is to invent names for the personages of
his tale ? Cliffords and Bellvilles and Mordaunts
are all worn out, and the writer who can paint
a hero to the life, and make the description of a
battle terrible as the reality, is not less at his wit's
end to baptise his hero and localise his battle than
Cassim Baba to find the magic word that opened
the cave of the robbers. Mr. Dickens has achieved
great things, but what has he achieved greater
than the discovery of suck names as Lord Frede.l
rick Verisopht, Dotheboys-hall, and the Circum-
locution-office`? Who does not read with admira-
tion, what is one of the most remarkable results of
human genius—the list of candidates for the
honours of the Derby, and wonder by what curious
process those singular names, Peepo'day-Boy, Fly-
by-Night, Surplice, Blinkbonny, and the rest, are
invented ? Where, then, are we to get the names
for our thoroughfares ? Are they to be called
Street A, Street B, Street C, and then, when the
alphabet is exhausted, Street AA, Street 88,
Street CC, or will the Metropolitan Board, in an
antiquarian fit, begin with Paternoster-row and go
right through the Prayer-book, or in an access of
Puritanic enthusiasm, shall we make broad our
phylacteries, and adorn our highways with texts of
Scripture, such as Resist-the-Davil-and-he-will-
flee-street ? or shall we adopt the French mode,
and start from the Rue de 29 Juillet ?

The task undertaken by our tive-and-forty
4;liles, it will be seen, is one of no small magni-
tude, and, if they accomplish it well, it is difficult
to say to what heights their ambition may not here-
after soar. Here is a problem evidently far greater
than the drainage of the city. They began with
the collection of guano, they proceed to the nomen-
clature of streets, and possibly they may end by dis-
covering the universal language. They began as a
metropolitan vestry ; they may end as an academy
of the sciences. The nextstep will be tointerfere with
the family of the Smiths, the Joneses, the Browns,
and the Robinsous. John Smith gives the postman
as much trouble as George-street. In fact, the
criticism of the committee who have reported
on this subject bears not only on the streets of
London, but on the use of the English language
and on the appellations selected by Englishmen all
over the globe. How is it that we find the home
names repeated wherever the English race is to be
found—Cambridge in England and Cambridge in
the United States, Ben Lomond in Scotland and
Ben Lomond in Tasmania ? How affectionately
we cling to. particular epithets ! A day is beauti-
ful, and a song is beautiful ; a mathematical
problem, a colour, a form, a motion, a military
manoeuvre, are all alike beautiful ; and one some-
times hears an old lady declare that the oxtail
soup is " beautiful." Then we have a bit of slang
which is eternally the same and means always
something different :—a man rides like blazes,
smokes like blazes, drinks like blazes, reads
like blazes, sleeps like blazes, laughs like blazes, and
one hears those who deal in slang use the term so
often, that we have a little natural curiosity to
know what is this " like blazes ?" With the
most affluent language in the world we are the
most parsimonious in our use of epithets. The
members of the Board are grieved to observe it,
and so they are going to set us an example by show-
ing how we can attain a judicious variety in the
denomination of our streets. They have set them-
selves a'very difficult task—we are afraid also a
hopeless one.
In all soberness, is there any great advantage to
be obtained by this reform ? By all means let the
reform be carried out, if it can be effected easily.
The Metropolitan Board of Works, like all gram-
marians, are quite right, and we, the public,
are quite wrong. All we say is that the
scheme which the committee have rather pom-
pously proclaimed is about as useless and as
troublesome as if they had propounded the theory
of a perfect language with eleven genders, sixteen
persons and twenty-five numbers, such as used to
excite the imagination of uld Sir Thomas Urqu-
hart. If there are many Cilarlosestree,ts, fur ex-
ai4ple, they are quite well enough distinguished
for all practical purposes by the addition of the
loCality—:a3 Charles-street, Berkeley-square, and
Charles-street, Groavenor-square ; and those who
would blunder such simple addresses Would blunder
them were they ever so plain, and would pro-
oably
confound the High-street, Oxford, with the
High-street, Edinburgh. But another -part of the
scheme which is far lees pretentious is likely to be
far more useful.. The grand object of the scheme
is to invent 500 new names of streets ; the supple-
mentary.part is to obliterate a multitude of names
in extensive thoroughfares that form one long line
of communication. The principal advantage to be
gained from the former proposal will Lill to the lot
of the novelists and dramatists of the next genera-
tion, who, in the confusion of a title. iced cT the
mistake of a rendezvous, will find a ready means of
eoMplicating a story or defeating a conspiracy.
The advantage of the latter proposal will be felt by
all.who daily traverse this vast metropolis. Who
has not been tortured ley that long lino of commu-
nication known as the New-road, which is in reality
a_ n infinite series of small streets, or rather rows or
houses, all having different names, and those on
the one side of the thoroughfares repudiating the
names of- those on the other ?
,‘ laces" and .c
i Here wehave
terraces" innumerable, nobody
knowing where they begin, nor where they end.
To cut up iolonecf.
ow 3
sions, and number.'" themr few natural divi
into a
straight on, will be an
undoubted improvement and save a great deal of I
embarrassment.--Times.

YEW NAMES POR LON DOB STREETS.

;proceedings of the Metropolitan
Our report of the
B -eerd of Works, at its pleeotifogivi,:Friday 1 e + ; d
a summary of the labours .as., con.a.ee-
wiii.ndon. Some further
tee on the street nomenclate„, of L,D'lffanger's
nobably be commit-
informations on the same headly
hiber attacked the
hie to our readers. Mr.
ilsv7ork by taking
accept-
difficulty in detail, and, commencesbut
.. names among
in hand 571 streets which have
them; it follows that for the streets in
alone 554 names must be found. this first section
We give from the Observer of yesterday an i
4 anaaesi
the proposals which the committee make On this J s of
In the first place, there are 62 George-streets. ),-oint'
street, Hanover-square, will remain unaltered, ande"ge-
Gethere
will also be a Great George-street and a Little
street in Westminster; that is all of the Georges George
will remain. Among their successors we notice scientific
men, as Liebnitz, Lardner, Hutton, Priestley, and
Shrapnel. Literature and divinity are represented by
Mahon, Paley, Marvel, Strype, Ogilvie, Lowth,
T'nirl wall, Aytoun, Massey, and Baxter. Poor
Power, the actor, has one of the streets. Of the aristo-
cracy there are Wynfora,' Vivian, and Rutherford.
Among a number of miscellaneous names of more or
less note are Whittington, Rushwortb, Esdaile, B!ake,
ivliskin, Patmore, Reynard, Chaplin, Fairbank, and
others—names certainly not of any great renown, with
the exception of that of the 44r-famed Whittington.
Among the substitutes for the Charles-streets literary
, menam_ predominate. There are Ainsworth, Lever, Mark-
-1 d u
l, Strickland, liea(s, uarles, Lingard, Thomson,
Southey, Croly, B wer, and Homan& Men of science
are
inelude representedthe
by Hoffman and Tenant ; thearistocracy
nee names of Vane, Caledon, Rawdon, Denham
and pii
kwotth. There are three actors—Cibber,
Garrick, and. Foote. These thtee celebrities very appro-
priately represent the three Charles-streets which exist
in the immediate neighbourhood of the two large
theatres--Charles-street,ber-street ; t% h art, Drury-lane, is to be Gib-
ber-street
; aid Charles-street,
Covent-garden. Garrick-
street
-street, Loner-acre, Foote-street.
The miscellaneous n
include that of Eugene Aram
Macpeil, the engine:slr. Richard Mayne gives his
name to Charles street, near„e thed Arbour-street, police
station ;
while
illie, who takes Char!es-
street, Lowndes-sqnare ;
„ carles-street, St. John's
wood, bi to be in future earned
we presurse, the late talented Cameron-street," after
manager of the Royal
British Bank.

_.......-- ----
The names of the aristocracy are wire frequent
among those propo,-ed in the place of the " John-streets"
than, in either the Georges or the Chartesep. Thera are
St. Germaine, Elleamere, Wodahouse, Lyttelton, and
Portland ; Literature
is represented by Bremner, Horne,
Horner, Mull, Cir Carport, Mayhew, Hnadley, Charming,
Potapn ; Playfair and Brodie are the men cf ;cience
Caxton, an o:d historic worthy; Boecawen, a name