The Sun.
London, England, 1861-02-14 00:00:00

CHARING-CROSS.

The half-yearly general meeting of this company
was held yesterday at the London-bridge Station,
the Hon. J. Byng in the chair.
The report, an abstract of which has appeared in
The Sun, was taken as read.

The CHAIRMAN, in moving the adoption of the
report, said, for some time to come the feature of the
greatest interest would be the proceedings of the
contractor; and as the works of the bridge across
the Thames must necessarily decupy much longer
time than any other part of the line, they were
accordingly put in hand first. The contractor was
now making considerable progress with the works,
and by the end of the summer it was probable that
the bridge across the river would be erected. They
ware nowproceeding with the purchase of property.
The negotiations were already far advanced for ob.
taining possession of the land between the south
end of Charing-cross and the station at London-
bridge, and the works would very shortly be in pro-
gress along the entire length of the viaduct. They
had determined to form the bridge across the Thames
with four lines of way, instead of two, as originally.
contemplated. The Board had also under considera-
tion the addition of a third line of way along the
viaduct, so as to enable the London local traffic to
be worked with the greatest economy and despatch.
By separating the short from the long traffic, and
keeping the local traffic out of the way of the through
trains, they should be able to work both with much
greater efficiency and regularity, as well as safety,
which was a most important point. Notwithstand-
ing these large additions to the accommodation of
the railway, there was good reason to believe that
the cost of providing them would be covered
by the authorised capital of the company. He
was justified in stating that the expense was
within the original estimates, and that the
statements which they made before Parliament
would be borne out by the actual results. The
directors proposed a very important addition to the
public accommodation of the line by extending it
to Cannon-street, where it would be in the imme-
diate neighbourhood of the Bank, Royal Exchange,
and the centre of city traffic, as at Charing-cross
it would be the centre of the west-end traffic. He
could not entertain a doubt that such an addition
to the railway must necessarily insure a very large
addition to the traffic. He concluded by moving
the adoption of the report.
Mr. THOMSON seconded the motion.

Mr. C. CHILD said he could not support the pro-
position for extending the line into Cannon-street.
He objected to the expenditure of so much capital,
which he thought could not be remunerative. He
believes!. the Charing-cross line, as at present au-
thorised, would be a most successful undertaking,
and it ought to be completed as speedily as possible.
Sir J. DUKE thought that extension to Cannon-
street would be of great advantage to the public,
and could not fail to be remunerative to the pro-
prietors. _ _ _

Mr. PARKER believed that the South-Eastern
Company, who were the principal proprietors of
the undertaking, would give their hearty support
to any undertaking that would protect and benefit
their property. It "was proposed to convey passen-
gers on the third line or rails from Cannon-street to
Charing-cross in six minutes by the proposed line,
while it would take 25 minutes by omnibus. There
must be a large traffic from that source.
Mr. G. SMITH was entirely'in favour of the ex-
tension to Cannon-street.

Mr. A. BEATTIE considered that the city terminus
in Cannon-street would be of great value to the
South-Eastern Company in developing its long
traffic. He hoped Mr. Child would withdraw his
opposition. _

After some observations from. Mr. Teulon, Mr.
Mellor, and Mr. Hawkshaw on the advantages of
the proposed extension to Cannon-street, the report
was adopted, and the retiring directors and auditor
were re-elected.

The proceedings concluded with a vote of thanks
to the chairman and directors.

SAN PAULO (BRAZILIAN),
At the half-yearly meeting of this company held
yesterday at the London Tavern, Mr. R. A. Heath
in the chair, the report was unanimously adopted.