The Sun.
London, England, 1860-10-31 00:00:00

TEE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 31, 1860.

CITY COMMISSION OF SEWERS.

Yesterday the Commissioners of Sewers held a
court for the transaction of business in Gaildhall,
Mr. Deputy Christie, their Chairman, presiding.
There was a large attendance of members.

STREET RAILWAYS.
Mr. G. F. Train, whose name is identified in
the public mind with the recent adoption of street
railways in Birkenhead, attended the Court, at
the request of the Commissioners, to afford ex-
planations as to a proposal he has jus: made to
them to introduce his system in all the principal
thoroughfares in the city of London. He was
accompanied by Mr. James Samuel and Mr. G.
Bruce, engineers, and he produced a model of his
plan of a street railway and of an oranibus for
traversing it, constructed to carry 48 passengers--
24 inside and 24 out, and intended to be drawn by
a couple of horses. It exhibits a siagle line of
rails running right down the middle of a street,
with a gauge similar to an ordinary railway, of 4
feet 81 inches, and leaving a space or. each side
for the accommodation of other traffie, the width
of which spaces will always depend on the breadth
of the street in which the project may be
adopted. To use a homely expression, ap-
plicable to this case, Mr. Train " keeps the crown of
the causeway." For about au hour End a half he
and the two engineers who accompanied him were
engaged in answering questions put by members of
the Commission, and we shall now give concisely
all the more interesting facts and opinions brought
out in the investigation, without adhering to the
necessarily desultory process by which they were
elicited. Mr. Train stated that he proposes to lay
down in all the leading thoroughfares in the city
his line of rails at his own cost, and in a manner to
satisfy the surveyor to the Commissioners ; that he
will undertake to do that within an interval pre-
scribed by the Commission, and that in the event
of the system, on a trial, being regarded by them
as a public inconvenience, he will put an end to it,
and reinstate the streets at his own cost. He
showed that there was no groove in his lines, in
which the wheels of ordinary carriages could stick ;
but, on the contrary, a flat surface of metal, six or
eight inches wide, which all might use free of
charge, his patent rights being confined to the
peculiar construction of the carriage which he uses.
At the outer edges of his lines there is a guiding
flange, but it is only five-eighths of an inch high,
and offers, as he submits, no obstruction to a carriage
crossing the road or one leaving his beaten track
to set down a passenger on the kerb or for any other
purpose. The outside width of his carriages is 6 feet
8 inches, and the gauge of the rails 4 feet 81 inches.
On the level metal plates many ordinary carriages
of various kinds may travel with two and always
with one wheel. The paved part of the road be-
tween the rails, as well as the rails themselves, will
be maintained by him at his own expense. The
leading idea which he seeks to, inculcate is
that the introduction of his system does not
diminish by one inch the ordinary roadway avail-
able for the general traffic, and that while the
road remains open to all, his plan affords facilities
for conveying great numbers of people from point
to point in great cities and towns, in a regular,
noiseless, and expeditious manner, greatly calcu-
lated to promote the public conveniences and to re-
lieve the thoroughfares. The very narrowness of
the streets of London, and the consequent stoppage
of the traffic, he contends, is one main reason why
railways to relieve them should be introduced; and
he points to rails laid down in the s treets of New
York, the Broadway, of course, exesepted, where
they are no wider than that of Cheap s ide, and also
in Philadelphia with a population of 600,000 inha-
bitants. At the junction of crowded streets, where
the principal obstructions take place., he says the
most fruitful cause of those obstructions lies in the
streetvehicles having power to wander over thcwhole
breadth of the carriage way in any d irection, and
any one attentively observing the con fusion at the
south end of London-bridge and the Poultry can-
not but be struck with the fact that; one-half the
difficulties might be removed by a little organisa-
tion and order; and this the existent of railways,
and the necessary confinement of at I,teast one im-
portant class of vehicles to a definite, track, would
tend materially to promote. Besides confining the
railway omnibuses to a given track., he submits
that the great mass of other converalnces will fall
into the same line, as a matter of conxenience, and
that the result of his observations in .America will
be found not less applicable to our awn towns—
namely, that the railway traffic and the ordinary
traffic move on together, not only without mutual
interference, but that the railway materially re-
lieves the other. The danger sup p osed to arise
from the difficulty of stopping railw lty omnibuses
and preventing their running into other vehicles,
he contends, has no existence : ini as much as the
breaks on those omnibuses enable the' coachman to
stop them more quickly than an omnibus on an or-
dinary road. There is also, he saysa the diminu-
tion of wear and tear in the roads, seeing that on
a level railway one pair of horses do the work
of four pairs on an ordinary road., so that in-
stead of having four omnibuses scattered over the
roadway we should have one mo wing steadily
along, doing the work of four. Add to all
this the great saving of money to the public by
the introduction of a much cheaper mode of con-
veyance. He proposes to introduce tb e system into
London at his own cost, and at a sav;Lng of from 20
to 30 per cent. to the public in pavin tg rates. He
looks for his profit to carrying passeta gers at prices
not exceeding, if not less than the pat sent omnibus
fares, in vehicles more than twice their capacity.
His object, as he further explains it,. :is to classify
the city traffic, as that is now attempted to be done
on London-bridge. His system becora es, as it wore,
a self-constituted police. He goes on Ithe faith that
if his plan be a good thing, and is a adopted by the
Commission, they will allow it to rents tin ; if other-
wise, he will take it up. Permissior t has been ob-
tained fortesting it in Victoria-street, "Westminster,
and Southgate-road, Hackney. Nearly-:all the metro-
politan vestries have reported favourably on the
project ; that of Lambeth having sent down a depu-
tation to Birkenhead to see it in practi4:al operation.
The omnibuses which he uses, besides t heir internal
accommodation and luxury, have gr eat facilities
for passengers alighting in the streets ; so much so
that in Birkenhead men mostly alig ht when the
vehicle is in motion, and it is only stl)pped for the
convenience of ladies. He asks for no exclusive
privilege as to the use of his rails; th ey will be free
to all. He protects himself only agn iinst the in-
fringement of his patent rights with respect to the
_ _

carriages he employs, and looks for a .return for his
outlay simply to competition with the, existing class
of public vehicles. He stated incidentally that, at
Birkenhead the leading omnibus proprietor had
become the superintendent of the new ,system there.
He added that his solicitor was now preparing a
permissive bill for introduction into Parliament
next session, with the view to enable corporations
and parishes to adopt his plan. lie admitted
there would be practical, but not :insurmount-
able difficulties in carrying it into opera-
tion in such places as Holborn-hill and Ludgate-
hill. To avoid Holborn-hill he proposes to make a
detour in going from Tottenham-court-road to the
bank by Guildford-street, IN'orthampto)3-square, and
Aldersgate-street, into Cheapside ; an d he contem-
plates a line along Cheapside for the traffic going
in one direction, and another along Cannon-street

for the returning tide. He was asked several times
where he intended to begin and mid, but his
answers in that respect appeared somewhat vague,
and to indicate that his project, as applicable to
London, was as yet scarcely matured in his own
mind. To one of those questions he replied he was
in no hurry about the city; his object was to show
the process in practical operation, and then to leave
it to speak for itself. As to the freedom of his
scheme from danger, he stated that out of 70,000,000
of people who had travelled along the street rail-
ways of New York, Philadelphia, and. Boston only
16 had met with accidents.

The members of the Court during the inquiry
started several difficulties in the way of the prac-
tical working of the plan in the crowded thorough-
fares of the city ; but, upon the whole, they
appeared to regard it with favour, many of the
Commissioners with marked approbation ; and after
a brief discussion, in which Dr. Rose, Deputies
Lott, Pewtress, and Harrison, Mr. Lowm an Taylor,
Mr. De Jersey, and other members took: part, the
consideration of the question by the Court was
ordered to stand adjourned for a month.
The CHAIRMAN, on the part of the Commission,
thanked Mr. Train for the ample explanations he
had afforded them on a subject of great public im-
portance, and for the frankness and courtesy with
which he had done so. He also apprised him of
the conclusion to which the Court had arrived,
with which Mr. Train said he felt satisfied and
withdrew.

77. 22, or nearly half, of the deaths were among
children of less than five years of age, and ten were
among old persons of 60 and upwards. The prin-
cipal causes of death were diseases of a chronic cha-
racter, but there were four deaths from pneumonia
and eight from bronchitis, which, with four from
phthisis, make 16 deaths from affections of the res-
piratory organs. Of the zymotic class of disease
there were returns of seven deaths only—namely,
two from measles, two from dysentery and diarrheea,
and one from each of the following—fever, whoop -
ingcough, and scarlet fever. Of the 77 births in the
city during the week 45 were boys and 32 girls.
The Court then adjourned.