The Sun.
London, England, 1861-05-22 00:00:00

THAMES EMBANKMENT.

A select committee of the House of Commons
has been sitting from day to day, receiving sug-
gestions, and we should be afraid to say how many
architects and engineers have appeared before it
with designs more or less comprehensive in their
objects and varied in their details. Anything or
everything may be included in a project which
deals with the better part of a hundred acres
on the banks of a great tidal river in the very
centre of the largest metropolis in the world.
So the reader will observe in the brief notes
of these designs, which are all we can usually
find room for, that in the compendious idea of
a Thames embankment there may be included
roads, railways, streets of houses and public offices,
docks, gardens, open canals, sewers, colonnades,
flying railways, hanging gardens, winter gardens,
and agreat deal more. But there is no occasion to
be frightened, as if we were going in for a Nero's
Golden Palace or for the wonders of Babylon. In
all substantial respects these many and multifarious
designs reduce themselves to two or three types,
we might almost say to one. The area to be rescued
from the Thames, the level to be maintained, the
river wall, the roadway, the docks required for
public convenience, and the great private establish-
ments on the river side, the approaches, the com-
munications with the bridges, and the arterial
sewers to be made on the bank, are all points on
which we should think it hardly possible to dis-
agree, except for a matter of a few inches in height
or a few feet of surface. Be that as it may, it i$
generally stated and believed that the committee
have agreed on a plan, and have found themselves
continually brought round to it, so that they have
very little expectation of anything better being
offered to them. As we have observed, indeed, the
scope of deviation is much less than is generally
suppoked,
Now, what hinders something—indeed, all--
being done as far as Parliament can do it, this very
session, otherwise so utterly barren ? Well, there
are the vested rights ; there are private houses,
docks, wharves, and gardens. These obstacles, how-
ever, disappear on being confronted. There are only
22 or 23 wharves that would be affected by the
Embankment; for, of course, we are only dealing
with the river side between Blackfriars and West-
minster. We are not aware that there would be
any difficulty in reserving to all of them sufficient
ingress, egress, and room for mooring and discharg-
ing. As for the Temple and other private gardens,
though there might be a little loss of quietness and
privacy, an extension and frontage to the quay
would have great countervailing advantages. We
repeat, there are no engineering difficulties, the
substance of the work to be done being merely to
dredge the channel of the river, which wants it
very much, and deposit the materials upon the
banks, now bare for half the twenty-four' hours.
Where, then, is the difficulty. Why do we betray
any forebodings as to the results of the committee
now sitting ? There is no real difficulty except the
official vas inertice. If the committee makes an
honest report with the recommendation of a plan,
the Board of Works, which has a good deal to do
already, will find that it has something more to do,
and that it will be much safer to do nothing than
to attempt anything in particular. It is assumed by
those who know the ways of the Board that, sup-
posing the Thames Embankment Committee to make
a report in a week or two, though there may remain
ample time to embody its recommendations in a
bill and carry it through both houses, there will
also be a very good excuse fur entire inaction. The
habits of the Board of Works we do not pretend to
know better than other people, but we cannot help
observing that if we should have war or serious
complications one year, a reform bill another year,
a dissolution another, and something else the fourth,
and if the metropolitan railway companies should
go on at their present rate, obtaining all the bills
they ask for and doing what they please with Lon-
don and its river, we shall find in 1870 nothing
done, and the work rendered far more difficult than
ever. There is no longer the excuse that has been
valid for a thousand years or so, that the work
would wait, for its crisis has arrived, and it will
wait no longer. That these words express a reality,
and are not a mere figure of speech, one glance at
the works now in progress, or to be commenced
immediately, will be sufficient to show. Among
them are the low level sewer, the approaches to the
new Westminster-bridge, the new railway-bridge
at Hungerford, with its station and it approaches,
and the new railway-bridge at Blackfriars, with
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panies and architects are not in the habit of de-
ferring operations to wait the pleasure of Go-
vernment ; on the contrary, they are rather dis-
posed to get the start of Government, that
the latter may have all the trouble and cost of
making the plans fit. This is the year for settling
this business, and no other. The difficulties, slight
now, are fncreasing rapidly, and if the present op-
portunity be not seized the question asked for the
next century will be, " Whv was it not done in the
year 1861, when the sewers, the bridges, stations,
and approaches were begun, or about to be begun ?''
If it were a matter 'of difficulty or uncertainty,, we
should not put this pressure upon gentlemen who
are no doubt counting the days to the recess, and
"babbling o' green fields," but there is neither dif-
ficulty nor even uncertainty this year, though we
will not answer for the next.--Times.

►STREET RAILWAYS IN BRISTOL—Mr. G. F
Train has requested permission to try the experiment of a
street railway in Bristol. He offers to lay down a line
from the top of Park-street to Clifton, with a branch to
Rutland, at his own expense, and to take it up again if
found inconvenient or objectionable. The matter has been
referred to the consideration of the local board of health.