The Sun.
London, England, 1859-03-30 00:00:00

Recollect that this scheme includes within it al-
most all the various projects of improvement at any
time advocated for the advantage, either in comfort
or splendour, or both together, of the cities of
London, Westminster, and Southwark It would
secure the complete and satisfactory drainage of the
whole capital—a capital spread, as we have seen,over
an area of fourteen square miles, and peopled
by an aggregate of two and a-half millions of in-
habitants. That would be of itself the most impor-
tant sanitary change that could well be effected,
and it will benefit 2,500,000—f0r it is happily
among the works already ordered—it will directly
benefit 2,500,000 at a cost amounting to less than
£2,500,000. The estimated net cost for the main
drainage of the metropolis being given in schedule
Aat £2,300,000. By this means, moreover, one of
the most admirable boons of all for the capital,
perhaps we ought to go further and say at once
distinctly the most desirable of all material boons, for
the capital would be happily accomplished—meaning
of course, the immediate and permanent purification
of the River Thames. All this, however, consti-
kites but a single item in the catalogue furnished as
an explanatory schedule, accompanying this mag-
nificent scheme of improvements. That scheme, as
we have said, comprises within it almost every-
thing for which the advocates of metropolitan im-
provements hitherto clamoured. It would put an
end to the obstruction to traffic caused by the erec-
tion of toll-bars on some of our most important
bridges, such as Waterloo-bridge, and the iron
bridge at Southwark. It would remove three
other notorious obstructions of a very different
character. It would transfer to a less inconvenient
locality the picturesque arch of Temple-bar. It
would rase to the ground the block of buildings
known as Middle-row, Holborn. It would do the
like good service in regard to Holywell-street, thus
widening the Strand from Catherine-street to New-
castle-street. It would avail itself of the opportu-
nity for the removal of old Berkeley-house for the
purpose of opening up a better entrance from Tra-
falgar-square into St. James's-park through Spring-
gardens. And here, we would suggest, might be
raised anew—upon the site at one time contem-
plated for the Marble Arch—here, at the entrance
through Spring-gardens into St. James's-park,
old Temple-bar might be re-erected as an
interesting memento of a past age emi-
nently worthy of preservation. Besides the
purification of the river itself, there is the plan
here put forth by the Board of Works, the forma-
tion (at a cost of £2,000,000, according to the esti-
mate of Mr. GISBORNE, C.E.), of the long-talked-of
Thames embankment, north and south, from Lon
don-bridge to Westminster.
Beyond even these changes the plan proposed in-
cludes within it—the formation of a new park—the
improvement of another one recently opened—the
erection of several new streets, and the widening of
many old ones. For example, in the last-mentioned
category, there is the design for widening, at a
cost of £40,000, the old, crooked, narrow,
tortuous High-street of the Old Court Suburb--
namely from Young-street to No. 59, High-street,
Kensington. There is the widening, too, for £46,000
of St. John-street, Clerkenwell. There are besides
the widening for £48,000 of the south end of Al-
dermanbury—for £42,000 of the south end of Milk-
street, next Cheapside—and for £540,000 of the north
side of the Poultry. The widening of St. Martin's-
lane for £90,000, a sum including under it a variety
of subsidiary improvements. The widening for
£300,000 of the east side of Queen-street, Cheap-
side. The widening for nearly £Boo,ooo—in fact
for just £799,000—0f Upper and Lower Thames-
street. The widening of Aldgate for £150,000—
of Norton Folgate for nearly £7o,ooo—of Bishops-
gate-street both Without and Within for
£lBO,OOO. The widening of the lower or southern
end of Bedford-street, Strand, as the completion of
the Covent-garden approach, for exactly £13,800.
The widening of the south end of Park-lane—of
course, we presume this would be done entirely on
the east side of it, the west side of it, where Park-
lane converges into Piccadilly, being occupied by
H. R. H. the General Commanding-in-Chief--the
widening of the south end of Park-lane, and the
continuing of South Audley-street into Park-lane
for a little over £170,000. Together with these
and other schemes for the widening of the old
streets, there are the plans already referred to for
the formation of new ones in various direc-
tions—from Trinity-square to Tower-street
—through Gate-street to Southampton-row,
Russell-square—from Earl-street, Blackfriars,
to the Mansion-house—from Wellington-street,
Waterloo-bridge, to Carey-street—from King-street,
Covent-garden, to Cranbourne-street—from High-
street, Southwark, to Stamford-street—from Bow-
street and Long-acre to Cheapside. The last, being
the most costly of the "new street" projects, would
involve an outlay, it is estimated, of about£l,ll2,6oo.
Reverting, however, from the items to the total—
let us remember in conclusion, by way of distinct
encouragement to the realisation of the enterprise,
that that total would form but an item in the ac-
count actually paid down in solid gold for the last
war, fought under the walls of Sebastopol.