The Sun.
London, England, 1860-05-25 00:00:00

loathing over the stream (whether for " laying" or
" drinking" purposes) which is inseparable from the

remembrance of its many secret abominations.
And all this filth, this wide open sewer, ebbing and

flowing perpetually through the whole capital from
Battersea down to the Towers of JULIUS, diffusing
its odious, and even at midsummer pestilential
vapours, on one hand into Surrey, on the other into
Middlesex, washing and weltering, and lapping
between the crowded dwellings of a metropolis

peopled with from 2,000,000 to 3,000,000—a1l this
foul and turbid deposit is continually from year to

year, from month to month, from day to day, accu-
mulating. The evil we have all been complaining
about for so long a period upon the occasion of

every returning midsummer, will be worse in the
dog days of 1860, than it was in the dog days of
1859, as the evil then was worse than in 1858, and
in 1858 than it was in 1857. That it should be so

stands to reason. While the drainage of the
capital is for the most part emptied into the river
Thames the population is ever and ever increasing
—and increasing too, if we may so express it, in-
creasingly. A system of Dirty Cleanliness, this,
as it has been happily called, that has continued in
operation now for so long a period that it is fast
attaining a magnitude that threatens (in one sense
happily) to be no longer endurable. The House of

Commons will be tired out at last to very nausea o
having to disinfect the atmosphere floating through
the open doors and windoWs by curtains
saturated with chloride of lime. It will re-
solve at last in veritable earnest to exorcise
that demon of the Thames, who with as
loathsome an alliteration of evil influence as
the "bug with gilded wings," in POPE'S Satire,
" stinks and stings" in our nostrils beyond the
power of further endurance. The folly of oar
remedial measures hitherto has consisted in this—
that we have been simply endeavouring to amelio-
rate the eject, instead of striving vigorously to
diminish, if not even eventually and entirely, to
remove the cause of all those incalculable abomi-
nations. No wonder the Thames is no longer the
Silent Highway. No wonder the trade of the
waterman has gone out. No wonder the Lord
Mayor of London no more has heart, or for that
matter stomach either, for "taking water," in his
gilt barge, and in making his way on the ninth of
November up to Westminster. The barge (alas !
for the glory of Gog and Magog) has been sold, as
a bauble of no further use or value, even as a
floating ornament. The Silent Highway is no
better nowadays, in fact, than the dirty backway
into London ; instead of being as it once was,
as it ought to be, and as it may yet again be in
some happy future time, the noblest approach to
our vast metropolis, and its much frequented and
picturesque and beautiful thoroughfare. What
Londoner, amongst us all—wishing to impress a
foreigner, or a country cousin, with the beauty or
the splendour of our capital—would dream of
bringing either for the first time into it by way of
the Thames above bridges ? Coming by steam-
boat, we should certainly go ashore to the east of
London-bridge, under the shadows of the Tower,
and the Custom-house, and the Monument. Coming
by railway, say from Dover, we should carefully
cross to the Middlesex side, over London-bridge,
and so advance by Cheapside westwards. We should
certainly take every precaution to prevent either
foreigner, or country cousin, from entering London
between those reeking mud-banks, those hideous,
blackened, littered wharves, back yards and out-
houses disfiguring both sides of the Thames almost
uninterruptedly from Billingsgate.and the Borough
up to Battersea. Yet, had we but the drainage of Lon-
don diverted carefully from the Thames, instead of
being directed carefully into it—had we, as we
might easily have, even now, the two sides of the
river beautified with terraced embankments—that
river approach would be the grandest of all ap-
proaches, the noblest of all thoroughfares—again,
what it was of yore in a wholesomer time, The
Silent Highway, winding broadly, gloriously on-
wards through the heart of London and West-
minster. What it was of yore, do we say ? Nay,
far grander, nobler, more beautiful than it ever was
of yore—with those magnificent bridges spanning
it—down, as it were, at the sea-gate of London, at
Southwark, at Blackfriars, at Hungerford, at West-
minster, at Battersea, and prominent among them
all for its symmetry, that superb Waterloo-bridge,
which provoked the envy almost of CA.NOVA ,
certainly eliciting from that great sculptor his
cordial and unstinted admiration. Talk of metro•
politan improvements ! Here is the improvement of
improvements, and immeasureably the best upon
which we could by possibility adventure. Let us
complete the main drainage of the capital, divert-
ing it altogether from the river ; let us thereby
enable the river as it is to thoroughly purify itself;
let us at the same time raise upon the Surrey side
and upon the Middlesex side those long-talked-of
Thames Embankments—and by doing this we shall
be rendering this huge and populous city more
salubrious than it has been for many generations,
at the same time that we shall be most effectually
carrying out the work of its advancement. There
is no possible reason why these long-proposed
Thames Embankments, properly paved, properly
lighted with gas:lamps, and properly planted with
trees (that thrive in some parts of London as ver-
dantly as any bit of rus in urbe anywhere discover-
able), there is no reason in the world why, all this
being done (and remember all this is perfectly
practicable), no reason, we say, whatever why the
Thames embankment should not in every respect
surpass the noblest and the loveliest of the Parisian
Boulevards.

Baron Rauch and Mr. Berns have arrived at
Fenton's Hotel, from Germany.

His Excellency the Minister for the Netherlands
is suffering from a severe attack of influenza.

Baron and Baroness Gunzbourg and family have
arrived at the Brunswick Hotel, Jermyn•street, from St.
Petersburg.

The Countess Cowper entertained at dinner, on
Wednesday last, the Marquis and Marchioness of Clanri-
carde, Captain F. Egerton, the Marquis of HartinAton,
Hon. F. Byng, Count Pahlen, Mr. A. Russell, the Earl
Cowper, Lord Boyle, Lord Dunmore, Lady Marian Alford,
Hon. Henry Cowper, the Marchioness of Abercorn, Lady
Georgina Hamilton, &c.

The Earl and Countess of Chesterfield entertained
their Serene Highnesses the Prince and Princess Edward
of Saxe-Weimar, the Earl of Coventry, the:Earl of Wilton
and Lady Katharine Grey Egerton, Lord and Lady
Forester, the Right Hon. Cecil Weld Forester, Hon. Sey-
mour Egerton, Mr. C. Greville, and a select party, at
dinner, on Wednesday, at their residence in GI osvenor-
street.

Prince Alfred is every inch a sailor ; as full of
mischief and fun as any middy in her Majesty's service,
and vastly popular among his companions, who although
picked lads, are none the less sad pickles. Boys will fight,
and ene day Prince Alfred had a turn up with young Gor-
don, and got a regular thrashing. Some one carried the
news to Captain Tarleton. " Don't bother me with such
nonsense," said he ; if I listen to these tales I shall have
enough to do. If the Prince can't keep a civil tongue in
his head, the sooner he is taught to do so the better."—
VginouthAternal.
Sir Robert and Lady Emily Peel received at
dinner last evening, at their residence in Whitehall-gardens,
the following circle : —Prince Dolgorousk, his Excellency
the Saxon Minister, Count Wirapffen, Maria Marchioness
of Ailesbury, Lord and Lady Lyndhurst, and Hon. Miss
Copley, Lady Truro, Lord Dufierin, the Right Hon. C. P.
Villiers, the Hon. A. Kinnaird, M. and Lady Margaret
Beaumont, &c.
Colonel and Mrs. Knevett arrived at the Pavilion
Ho
daytel fur,Fol Paris.kestone, on Wednesday, and left on the follow-
ing