The Sun.
London, England, 1858-10-09 00:00:00

THE COMET.

FINSBURY-PARK.
The board received a numerous deputation from
the vestry of Islington, to present a memorial on
the subject of the proposed new park for Finsbury.
The churchwardens of St. Luke, Old-street, also
attended to support the memorial.
W. Cox, Esq., M.P., addressing the board, said
that the prayer of the memorial was that the board
should take immediate action in obtaining the land
necessary for the formation of the park. He com-
plained that a year had now elapsed since the
Royal assent to the bill for this park had been given
and that nothing whatever had been done toward;
carrying the measure out. A very general feeling
'had gone abroad that the board did not seriously
contemplate doing anything immediately, which
had'paused very general dissatisfaction to the in-
habitants, which was increasing by. the knowledge
that the board had done something in the matter of
the approaches to Victoria-park.
The PRESIDENT explained that the cases differed
very. much. Land and funds had been contributed
by individual inhabitants in the latter case and
not in the former.
Mr. Cox said that this explanation would, no
doubt, be satisfactory, and proceeded to urge
strongly that if the land was not immediately
secured it would continue to be built upon, and the
expense of purchasing would be immensely in-
creased.
Mr. SAVAGE moved that the memorial be re-
ceived.
Mr. Hows seconded the motion, which was car-
ried.
The deputation then withdrew.
THE NEW MEMBER FOR BERMONDSEY.
The President introduced Legg, Esq., the
newly-elected member for the district of Ber-
mondsey.
PARISH OF ST. PANCRAS.
Mr. Deputy HARRISON brought up a report from
the Finance Committee recommending that the
board should sanction, in writing, the borrowing
by the vestry of St. Pancras of a sum or sums not
exceeding in the whole the sum of £B,OOO, for the
purpose of paving or putting into a proper state the
foot and carriage-ways of portions of the said
parish, at a rate of interest not -exceeding £5 per
cent. per.annum, such loan to be secured upon a
mortgage or mortgages of such of the rates leviable
within the said parish as the said vestry may deem
advisable, and as may by law be applicable thereto,
and to be repayable within a period not exceeding
20 years from the date thereof.
After some discussion the recommendation of the
committee was adopted.
FLEET VALLEY RAILWAY.
Mr. Deputy HARRISON, pursuant to notice, pre-
sented a memorial from Mr. Charles Pearson, at the
instance of the House of Commons' Committee
upon metropolitan communications, in favour of the
Fleet Valley Railway.and City Terminus, in con-
junction with the raising of Holborn-valley and
other street improvements, within the jurisdiction
of the Metropolitan Board of Works ; and moved
that Mr. Pearson be heard, to explain the details
of the plan suggested in his memorial, and that it
be referred to the Works, &c., Committee, to
examine and report thereon.
The memorial, which is a lengthy one, was then
read as follows :
"To THE HONOURABLE THE METROPOLITAN
BOARD OF WORKS.
" The respectful memorial of the undersigned,
Charles Pearson, City Solicitor, formerly Common
Councilman for Bishopsgate Ward, and lately
M.P. for Lambeth,
" SITOWETII,—That during the 40 -years he has
been connected, as a member or officer, with the Cor-
poration of London, he has taken a deep interest in
all measures of street improvement proposed within
the City and the metropolis at large.
" When railways had successfully established
themselves in the north of England, and were ap-
proaching . the metropolis, with the intention of
fixing their general stations at the outskirts, the
undersigned projected a plan for uniting them, by
means of branch lines at King's-cross, to a trunk
railway leading to a station at Farringdon-street,
so as to place City passengers by the northern
lines within a walking distance of the great City
establishments in a locality bearing about the same
relation in point of distance to the centre point of
business, and giving the same amount of accommo-
dation as the London-bridge and Fenchurch-street
stations afford to the provincial and suburban pas-
sengers by their lines.
" In 1844-5, the merchants and wholesale dealers
of the City petitioned the Common Council to
render assistance to the project, and the Court
having passed a resolution in its favour, the requi-
site capital was subscribed, and the necessary Par-
liamentary notices were given to carry it out, in
conjunction with the raising of Holborn-valley and
other street improvements in the vicinity, which
the Corporation was then able and willing to under-
take. But two or three of the great railway com-
panies, and several other projectors, attracted by
the advantages which a City Terminus would give
to railroads north of the Thames, proposed various
other schemes, which, if carried into execution
would have occupied nearly one quarter of the
City.
" Alarmed by the magnitude and multitude of
these projects, her Majesty's Government issued a
commission to two noblemen, a retired Chancellor
of the Exchequer, a military engineer, and the then
Lord Mayor, to inquire ints these projects.
"The commission was issued at a time when the
world was wild with railway speculation, and
it was obvious that the inquiry was directed
more by financial than engineering considera-
tions. A report was shortly afterwards made,
disapproving of all the plans, and recommending
that no railway should be permitted to approach
nearer to the City than the junction of the Edgware-
road and Oxford-road on the north-west, the New-
road on the north, and the City-road, at the Canal
Basin, on the north-east of the City.
" The undersigned exhibited his maps, sections,
and models, and gave evidence before the commis-
sion in support of his plans in conjunction with the
requisite street improvements. The commissioners
commended the plan in general terms ; but as it
extended very far within the prohibited limits, it
was placed in the condemned category, and so for
a season it was set at rest. The commissioners,
however, stated in their report that they had been
furnished with but very insufficient materials
„to
enable them to form a conclusive judgment upon
the important subject submitted to their considera-
tion, and they recommended if, upon ffirther expe-
rience, it should thereafter be deemed expedient to
allow railroads to be extended to the City, that it
should be done under the supervision of the Cor-
poration or other local authority, in connexion with
street improvements, to be made at the joint ex-
pense, in just proportions, of the public and the
railway company.
" In 1855, the undersigned was summoned before
a committee of the House of Commons, sitting to
consider the state of the City and metropolitan
thoroughfares. The several maps and models ex-
plaining his project were again examined in con-
nexion with the Metropolitan Railway, for which.
an Act of Parliament had at that time passed, em-
bracing, with some modifications, a considerable
portion of his original plan. The report states—
' That wherever, as for example in the case of the
Metropolitan Railway, works for improving the
communication of the metropolis can be carried out
by private enterprise, that course be adopted ; and
the committee consider that most important results
may be secured in this way. That when the im-
provements contemplated partake more of the cha-
racter of a public benefit than a commercial specu-
lation, care be taken by such means as econo-
mising the waste spaces of the river, or opening
new streets through poor neighbourhoods, to di-
minish the cost of the undertaking to the lowest
possible point ; and that where the for
going objects can be more efficiently carried out
by the combined agency of railways and street im-
provements suggested 'by Mr. Pearson, it may be
desirable to economise expenditure by uniting the
two objects under the superintendence of the in-
tended Metropolitan Board of Works, as recom-
mended in the Railway Commissioners' Report of
1846, referred to in the evidence of Mr. Pearson.'
" The oral and documentary evidence adduced
before the committee conclusively proved that the
population of the metropolis had more than doubled
during the preceding 40 years; that the overcrowded
state of the courts and alleys in which the poor re-
sided, and the overcrowded state of the thorough-
fares of the metropolis, and particularly of the
City, had advanced of late years with a constantly
accelerating rate of increase.
c
" The number of hackney carriages plying in the
streets was, in 1821, only 1,000, the same number
as in 1768. Sit* 1821, the number constantly
plying has increased to upwards of 4,7oo—oinm-
buses, which were unknown thirty years ago, make
upwards of 10,000 journeys a day through the
streets of the metropolis. The gigantic vans which
are now traversing our streets were likewise, till
recently, unknown ; and it is a fact observable to
all, that the stoppage in our principal thorough-
fares occasioned by this confluence of traffic, light
and heavy, renders =safe for any man who has

streets. _
" The lin-a-e-rsigned repeats, with increased ear-
nestness and confidence, what he has been for the
last twenty years frequently asserting, that these
evils will go on increasing until the business of our
principal streets will be forced into other channels,
unless measures be taken to give the means of rail-
-way communication both for passengers and goods,
from, to, and through the City, the heart's core of
this constantly extending metropolis.
" During the three years which have elapsed
since the date of the committee's report, the under-
signed has abstained from pressing the subject upon
your board's attention, from a knowledge of the
difficulties which impede the action of all newly-
constituted bodies, and of the important questions
affecting the metropolitan sewage, to which your
attention has been imperatively directed.
" Circumstances have, however, recently arisen,
which compel the undersigned to grapple with the
evils complained of, by again forcing his project
upon public attention, as the powers of the Metro-
jpolitan Railway. Company's Act for securing to the
public the first instalment of- this great measure of
relief, are in danger of dying a natural death, un-
less means be taken by, the Corporation and the
Board of Works to render some assistance in the
manner referred to in the House of Commons Com-
mittees', and the Royal Commissioners' reports.
" It is understood that your honourable board
has referred it to a committee, to consider amongst
other street improvements, the propriety and neces-
sity of getting rid of a serious impediment to one of
our principal public thoroughfares, by raising Hol-
born-valley, and readjusting to a higer level Far-
ringdon and Victoria-streets. Such an alteration
of the levels would offer great facilities for the
traffic to the proposed railway stations in Farring-
don-street, and it would give great encouragement
to the promoters of that undertaking, if your hon-
ourable board would, by means of that and other
surrounding improvements, lighten the burdens
which press down the railway enterprise.
"It is right to state that the Metropolitan and
Fleet Valley Railway and City Terminus, as now
proposed, are very much less in their proportions
than they were when presented to the public bodies
to whose proceedings I have already referred.
" When the plan was originally devised, the
Corporation of London was out of debt, and had a
large income available for the great street improve-
ments to which the plan in its larger dimensions
would. have given rise. The great railway com-
panies, too, whose vital interests required a City
terminus for the use of their most frequent and
best-paying customers, had at that time abundance
of capital and credit at their command. The under-
signed does not retract a single expression of his con-
fident opinion, if the Corporation and the great
railway companies had at that time dealt with
the whole matter in a manner worthy of such
a great and important interest, and if the Govern-
ment had not interdicted the introduction of a
railroad into the City—a well-paying measure,
combining railroad accommodation with street im-
provements, would have been established in this
dull and dreary locality, which for beauty and
utility combined, need not have been ashamed to
compare with any other city in the world.
" Having regard to the altered financial position
of the great bodies who were formerly looked to for
means to carry.the Fleet Valley Railway and Cen-
tral Terminus into execution according to the ori-
ginal design, it would manifestly involve a waste
of time and energy any longer to struggle against
the current of adverse circumstances with which it
has had to contend. It has been, therefore, deter-
mined to make a vigorous effort to carry into imme-
diate execution the powers of the Metropolitan
Railway. Acts, by which a comparatively cheap line
and station, in the new street north of Holborn-
valley, may be constructed in such a form as will at
once serve to bring both goods and passengers from
the northern and western suburbs, and the Great
Western and Great Northern railroads, to the City,
leaving it to a future period to complete the grand
design, by extending it in a subway through the
City and over the river, to communicate with the
railroads south of the Thames.
" The Fleet Valley Trunk Line will, in fact, form
the back-bone or first instalment of a system of
subway railroads, which, sooner or later, must be
adopted to bisect the metropolis from the east to the
west, as well as from the north to the south, for the
purpose of conveying merchandise, coals, and market
goods by night, and passengers by day, from, to,
and through the centre of this ever-extending me-
tropolis, without choking up the main streets.
" As has been already observed, the metropolis
has more than doubled its population in 40 years ;
during the same period public conveyances of vari-
ous kinds have more than quintupled in number,
and there does not appear any good reason for
doubting that, during the next 40 years, the same
rate of increase will be maintained in the number of
the inhabitants ; and that the same increased de-
mand for the means of carriage conveyance would
take place, but that it could -not be satisfied, be-
cause of the phy-sicalinability of our streets to afford
any further accommodation.
"By means of subway railroads intersecting the
densely-inhabited parts of the metropolis, and by
a systematic organisation of the existing and future
lines that may be established in the country round
London, the metropolis of the empire may progress
for centuries, enlarging its boundaries, without in-
conveniently pressing upon its busy centre.
" Railroads, which have been not inaptly termed
the thews and. sinews of commercial enterprise, and
the veins and arteries of social intercommunication,
appear to be especially designed to favour the in-
definite growth of great cities, by relieving them of
many. of the evils which have hitherto attended
their increase.
" Regarded in a financial point of view, such a
mode of conducting the traffic of a great city,
whether undertaken by the public authorities, or
by private enterprise, could not fail to be in the
highest degree remunerative, whatever might be
the amount of the original outlay requited. It is
by extensive and costly machinery that quantity
and cheapness in every department of manufactures
can be obtained. When the density of a given
population is sufficient to create a large quantity of
passenger traffic, there is no description of machi-
nery in the world so well calculated, as a railroad,
to illustrate this principle. Upwards of two mil-
lions sterling, or nearly £7,000 daily, are expended
by the inhabitants and wayfarers of the metropolis,
in the cost of omnibuses and cabs, nine-tenths of
which amount, it has been ascertained, is absorbed
in the working charges, notwithstanding they pay
nothing for the tear and wear of the streets. That
at all times, and under all circumstances, a consider-
able portion of this expenditure would be required
for these purposes in passing from street to street
—but that a great present, and still greater future
amount would be applicable to the main arterial
intercommunication of both passengers and goods,
by means of subway railroads, there can be but
little doubt.
" The undersigned, therefore, prays your honour-
able board to take into consideration the foregoing
facts and arguments, which, with the sanction of
the House of Commons' Committee, he has taken
leave respectfully to lay before you.
" If, as the undersigned has been informed, your
honourable board has it in contemplation to confer
upon the public the inestimable benefit of raising
Holborn-valley, and re-adjusting the adjacent
streets to the improved levels, the undersigned prays
your honourable board to consider your projected
improvements in combination with the intended
Metropolitan Railway, in order that by united
action the greatest amount of public accommoda-
tion may be obtained at the least possible cost.
" CHARLES PEARSON.
" London, October 8, 1858."
Mr. PEARSON (who we regret to say did not ap-
pear in good health) intimated his willingness to
attend the committee, and give every information
in his power upon the subject, but was not suffi-
ciently well at present to enlarge personally upon
it, and his petition was therefore framed so as to
state his views in reference to the matter.
The memorial was received, and referred to the
Works and Improvement Committee, Mr. Deputy
HARRISON intimating that the matter was most
- I urgent.
Ire- •

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_ Astronomy in these days has become to most
people a very cut and dried science. Sir Isaac
Newton has told us all about it. There is the sun
in the centre, and the planets revolve round it, as
we see in the orreries. The grand discovery of
gravitation started from the fall of an apple, and
ends with it. The sun is a very large orange, the
earth a crabapple, and the moon a white currant.
With a few trifling varieties, this explains the
whole solar system. Ladies' maids understand it
all, for it is far easier than needlework or clear-
starching ; and, though we have heard of one who
owned herself beaten by the " procession" of the
equinoxes, the whole affair lies within the reach of
a village school, from the nutation of the earth's
axis to the discovery of the last new planet. The
mind contemplates a vast shadowy order of revolv-
ing worlds, and is satisfied. The truth leaves so
little to the imagination, it establishes so impass-
able a gulf between us and. every other celestial
body, that minds bred in the school of life and sen-
timent recoil from. this, the cold certainty of solid
spheres moving by iron laws. What have we to do
with the planet Jupiter, or even our own moon ?
Tell us, if you can, whether they are inhabited; what
like beings occupy them; how they live ; and if
possible, open communication with them. What
are they to us, or we to them ? Your discoveries
only make matters worse. Desist, and let us
imagine what science forbids us to believe. Mean-
while, thanks to the dull, able men, who, with their
cold piercing eyes and subtle algebra, have dis-
sected this great puzzle, not only have illusions
vanished, but the very pageant of the visible heavens
has lost its charm. Who knows, or cares to know,
'
the thousand spectacles that astonomer, shepherd,
and sailor once watched and waited for ? The con-
stellations, the heliacal settings of the chief stars,
the planets, their onward and backward paths, the
harvest moon, the Milky Way, now brilliant, now
turbid, now in many streams, now in one, have
become almost hidden lore to us, who know, as we
think, the substance of which all these are shadows.
Happily for men of science themselves, to give a
motive for further research, and to suggest some-
thing beyond a mere eternal order, the fact which
they discover is ever in advance of the law which
they know. As they scrutinise the vacant places of
our own system, or project their gaze deeper and
deeper into the infinite, they encounter a strange
caprice, a wild variety, shapes as fanciful as those
of Flora'sown:devising, mysterious movements, and
the traces of terrible catastrophes. We see stellar
systems, or rather universes, exceeding all our
notions of magnitude in the eccentric shape of
ringlets, horses' tails, dumb-bells, crowns, discs,
and sickles. In our own system, where an eternal
law had seemed to prescribe certain planets at cer-
tain distances, that law is found to have been
rudely interrupted by the explosion of one globe
into fifty smaller ones. Even the sun itself sug-
gests the hope, or the fear, of changes affecting its
own structure, and the condition of every planet
that basks in its rays. We have, then, a celestial
history as well as order ; events as well as method.
In the noble heavens around us there is not only
an eternal present ; there is a past, and there is a
future.
But of all these changes and events, portentous
yet welcome, there is none so historical, so fearful,
or that so bespeaks a still creative hand, as those
wondrous visitors one of whom is to-night, as they
tell us, at its brightest and nearest. We all speak
glibly of dimensions, and distances,:and velocities ;
but as Ariel or Puck is to slow mortal man, so is
this heavenly sprite to the vulgar rank of planets.
As he has been seen for several nights past, with
his head in the latitude of Arcturus, vertical to
Jamaica or Bombay, he has flung a stream of light
to a latitude vertical to the northern part of this
island. Even in this hazy atmosphere the spectre
has been traced to a length of 40 degrees, which,
taking distance and angles into account, cannot
stand for less than 50,000,000 of miles. But when
we ask who and what this is,—what is his sub-
stance, his work, and his law, all are at fault.
Astronomers, new and old, materialists, and mystic
cists, mathematicians and nurserymaids, mediaeval
sign-mongers and modern philosophers, are all re-
duced to one rabble of guessers. When they have
made head and tail of it their discoveries come to a
standstill. What is a comet ? By numerous tests
it has been found impossible to detect any weight
in it sufficient to affect the motions of a planet or a
satellite. But for this we should have had our own
year frequently lengthened and shortened to such
an extent as to throw all our chronology out of
gear, and supersede the almanac as much as a dis-
solution does our " Parliamentary Companion."
Our shadowy visitors themselves ~..vay the pro-
foundest homage to our superior gravity ; they bow
to this planet, they linger for that; they hasten to
another ; with a series of weak compliances, they
change their speed, their orbits, even their winter
quarters in the extra-solar heavens. By all the
time, in our dull material pride, we budge not one
inch of our state or our progress for these charlatans
of space. Yet the nucleus must have gravity, for
how else would it gravitate or retain hold of its
tail, if, indeed, it does ? Is the tail solid or hollow ?
Is there any portion of it dense enough to shut
out the light of the smallest telescopic star ? Even
that is doubtful. Yet the bulk of the head.
itself is sometimes immense—a million of miles
across. As for the tail, it defies all theories of gra-
vitation, of light, or of heat. Is it a flame ? Is it
a smoke ? Is it a steam ? Is it a bubble ? Is the
whole affair a balloon, of which the nucleus is the
car ? Does that stream of light shoot out, as they
tell us, at the rate of ten millions of miles a-day,
return to the parent stock, or is it left behind ?
Does it precipitate itself, as some say, back again
on the outward-bound nucleus ? Is it a mere illu-
sion ? We hear a good deal of the heavenly archi-
tecture and celestial mechanism. Is it compatible
with our notions on those points that a column of
imponderable matter fifty millions of miles high
should move through space, entire and undispersed,
at the rate of two or three millions of miles a-day ?
The Comet of 1843, the most wonderful on record,
whisked round the sun, close to it, at such a rate
that its tail, a million of mils long, described in
two hours the half of an orbit equal to the earth's.
Supposing the tail to have held together during
this process, the extremity of it went over as much
space in two hours as we do in half a year, travel-
ling at the rate of about three miilions of miles in
one minute. As this staggers all belief, we must
conclude that a good deal of the tail was left be-
hind, brushed off in vether, if nether there be, while
the tail itself was continually restored during those
wondrous two hours by fresh issues from the
nucleus, which, however, to do that work would
have to do the somewhat less speed of one hundred
million of miles in two hours, or about one million
of miles in a minute. Can anybody now pretend
that there is nothing to be learnt, nothing more to
be discovered in the skies ?
It is stated that the periods of two hundred
comets have been calculated, which looks rather
like a step towards reducing these vagrants to order
and civilization. But there is almost always a
hitch as to the actual return of a considerable
comet. Either it does not come at all, or
it comes so overdue that people hesitate to
acknowledge it, or when it comes
.just at the
very nick of time it has changed its character so
much that its own prophet, after a most solemn
announcement, is afraid to recognize his protege.
For a long time it might be said there was no
comet in the sky. Except the tail of that of 1843,
seen by a few fortunate observers, we have bad
none of any importance since 1811. So, now is the
time to attack this wondrous problem. What is a
comet ? Does it come to drown us in a deluge, to
shroud us in blight, to sadden us with fog, to
quicken us with fresh oxygen, or to burn us with
fire ?

Be thou spirit of health, or goblin damned,
Bring with thee airs from Heaven, or blasts from HOll,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable ?
We trust science will set to work to question the
nature and office of these fair apparitions. We
cannot willingly believe harm of them. Ten yards
of low earth mist would utterly extinguish the
twinkle of any star in the firmament, yet on Tues-
day night Arcturus glittered through a million
miles of comet tail, not only with no reduction of
his brilliancy, but with a marked increase, and
with bright prismatic hues. What if -we were to be
involved for a few minutes, or hours, in so pure an
atmosphere ! Our only fear is that it would never
be able to penetrate through this thick overcoat of
coarse terrene atmosphere. Possibly, however, we
may have to add to our scientific facts a brush or
two from the tail of a comet. Venus on the 17th
of this month will have a narrow escape from the
embraces of this celestial visitor. Had he come
five days earlier he would have rushed straight
into her arms. What a warm admirer for a virgin
planet ? The astronomers talk in their usual posi-
tive tone as to our security from this danger, and
"tell us the odds are we forget how many millions
to one against it. On the other hand, they compute
the number of comets in our system at several
millions. To vulgar apprehension the chance of a
collision with five million tails, averaging fifty
millions of miles, dancing all sorts of pirouettes
within the contracted space of the earth's orbit,
does not seem so slight. We rather put our securiV
in the fact that we have come to no harm yet by
these mysterious visitations. He who made this
beauteous earth, who made sun and moon, made
comets also, and made them for our good—not our
ill.— Times,