The Sun.
London, England, 1859-08-10 00:00:00

BARomETER--30.05.

WIND, Easterly ; fresh, with dull rainy weather.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
THIS DAY.—Morning, 11h. 49m.—Aftemoon, Oh. Om.
To-Monßow-Morning, 12h. 23m.—Afternoon, 12h. 52m.

It is but indifferently inaugurative of Mr.
FITYROY'S career as our new Minister of Public
Works—this miserable project of his for the nomi-

nal purification of the Serpentine ! " That a sum
not exceeding £17,000, be granted to her Majesty
for cleansing the Serpentine River, Hyde-park, in
the year ending the 31st day of March, 1860."
That was the wording of the very first resolution
down upon the papers of the house for consideration
in Committee of Supply at the evening sitting on the
4th of this present month of August. A resolution
unhappily regarded only by the House with a too
careless complaisancy. The proposition of Mr.
Frrzßoir simply :amounts to this—that a sum
of £17,000 sterling shall be wastefully applied
by the nation to the carrying out of a series
of preposterous experiments by (that no doubt
eminent engineer), Mr. HAWKESLEY. We say
nothing whatever against Mr. HAWKESLEY'S
engineering capabilities. We will accept them
as indisputable. But while doing so we must
really be permitted to designate the scheme of this
distinguished engineer for the purification of the
Serpentine, as nothing better than a series of pro-
posed experiments, and a series of experiments that
we can designate no otherwise than as simply
preposterous. A filtering apparatus, according to
this plan, is to be placed at the head of the Serpen-
tine—into this filtering apparatus the water is to
pumped-2,000,000 gallons of this water are to
flow through it daily, or otherwise to put it, just
60,000,000 gallons per month—and so on pumping,
and flowing, and filtering, and (we regret to add it)
stinking, and reeking with loathsome and pestilen-
tial vapours indefinitely ! A cheering prospect
for the contiguous inhabitants, for the dwellers
in Kensington-gore and Bayswater, to say
nothing of that creme de la creme pouring
day by day round the " ring" and down " rotten
row"—the very milky way of the heaven of fashion,
whom some writers delight, above all things, to
designate The Upper Ten Thousand. A delicious
and a most salubrious prospect, we say, for alt
these favoured denizens of the West End—the
purification here opened to view by this absurd,
extravagant, and worse than useless project, cham-
pioned by Mr. FITZROY, and originally hit upon as
such an extremely bright idea by Mr. HAWKESLEY !
It was not in this fashion that Sir BENJAMIN HALL,
now my Lord LLANOVER, earned such deserved
popularity by his administrative labours when at
the head of the Woods and Forests, of the Parks
and Palaces, or however the Edileship of
England may be the most incorrectly desig-
nated. It was not thus that his Lordship
had the ornamental waters in St. JAMES'S
Park—a sheet of water previously like the Serpen-
time, both a notorious pest, a frequent peril, and a
perpetual and undoubted nuisance—it was not
thus that Lord LLANOVER, or, as he was then, Sir
BENJAMIN, had the water in St. James's Park
cleared out effectually, the bed of it scooped to an
uniform hollow, and the whole spot rendered at
once salubrious and beautiful. But, says Mr.
FITZROY, deprecating beforehand any blame
through precisely this dreaded contrast —to
carry out the plan adopted in St. James's Park,
namely, the very plan we have just alluded to,
that of drawing off the water, removing the
muddy sediment left there behind it, and then lay-
ing a smooth concrete bottom for the pure water to
be afterwards let into the repaired bed of the
Serpentine—would cost between £50,000 and
£60,000 ! Wherefore Mr. FITZROY has sagaciously
arrived at the conclusion, that it is better to spend
£17,000 in trying Mr. HAWKESLEY'S filtering ex-
periment of 2,000,000 gallons a day, or 60,000,000
amenth. Better, say we, out of the merest, paltriest
motives of economy—immeasureably better than
throwing away even £lO,OOO, to spend even
£lOO,OOO (and not merely £50,000 or £60,000)
in cleansing the Serpentine at once and for
all—in cleansing its pestiferous waters effec-
tually and permanently. The proposition of
Mr. FITZROY, borrowed from the bright idea "of
Mr. HAWKESLEY, carries the evidence of its folly
upon the face of it. These 2,000,000 gallons of
filtered water a-day, or 60,000,000 a-month, are to
flow through the projected filtering apparatus back
again into the old foul depository from
which they
will just before have been pumped—back again
into that rotten old bed of the Serpentine ! So that
the filtrition must be repeated again and again
almost an indefinite number of times, for months,
it may even be for years, before there can
be cleared out what there is there capable of
being de ored out by means of filtration ! For
besides the, se, there are in the waters of the Ser-
pentine other noxious impurities that altogether
defy their rem, wal by filtration. As a correspon-
dent of one of out • morning contemporaries observes
thir, very
day, « ,e proposal of Mr. FITZROY for
purifying the Serpei, 'tine {appears to overlook one
important fact,—viz., t, `tat a large portion of the
impurity of the water conk lists of organic matter in
solution. The proposed itration of the water

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THE SUN.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10, 1859.