The Sun.
London, England, 1850-12-23 00:00:00

With% altIL

LONDON, MONDAY. DECEMBER 23, 1850.

The meeting of the Commissioners of Sewers on
Friday was rendered important by the announcement
of Sir DE LA BECHE that the Commissioners had ac-
tually, in the construction of the Victoria-street
sewer, commenced carrying out a system which com-
prised the entire abstraction of the sewage from the
Thames upon the northern side to at least a distance
equal to Galleon's Reach, coupled as it was with the
statement subsequently made by Mr. PET°, that the
plan for the southern side of the river relieved the whole
of the southern district of the met ropolis with two
lifts only, and afforded the power of removing the
whole of the sewage to any distance required or de-
sired, provided it should not be found that at the
point they proposed to stop the public bad in the
meantime made such arrangements as should utilise
the whole of the sewage, and that, although the new
Victoria-street sewer must necessarily discharge
itself for the present at Scotland-yard, yet that ulti-
mately the whole of Westminster and the whole
of the City sewage would be discharged
at such a distance down as should be be-
yond the reach of London, and from which no
practical evil can ensue. We are rejoiced to receive
from a gentleman of such high character and such
extensive practical knowledge as the Hon. Member
for Norwich, this distinct pledge that the waters of
the Thames will be preserved pure ; for, be it ob-
served that Mr. PETO has declared that the plan
proposed affords the power of removing the sewage to
any distance required, and the required distance
he himself admits to be " such a distance down
as shall be beyond the reach of London," so that
we msy now congratulate ourselves that there is "a
good time coming," when we may hope to be sup-
plied with pure water from the Thames itself.
Whether or not it would be more profitable to dis-
infect the sewage, and extract from it all its fertilizing
qualities, suffering the clear and inodorous superna-
tant fluid alone to escape into the Thames, is a
matter which we will not now stop to discuss,
so satisfied are we_ with the promise of
Mr. PETO that the sewage shall be disposed of in
such a manner as to be beyond the reach of London.
We congratulate our fellow-denizens of the metropolis
on this most important decision—a decision for which,
we believe, they are solely indebted to the reconstitution
of the Commission on the Bth October, 1849, and the
substitution of practical men like Mr. PETO for mere
chattering amateurs. Mr. STEVENSON, and Mr. PETO,
and Mr. RENDEL were solicited on that occasion
to become members of the Sewage Commission as a
matter of great public duty, and as such they con-
sented. Since that period Mr. PETO has devoted
gratuitously to the service of the public, on this Com-
mission, a period of time equal to no less than seven
months, during which he and his brother Commis

sinners have examined the reports on no less than
700 miles of main sewers, have examined the
whole of the plans submitted to their predeces-

sors in office, and have formed and mapped out a
plan for the whole southern side of the river. These
statement show that, at all events, Mr. PETO and his
coadjutors have not been idle, and he declares that he
is prepared to remain in London, and to follow up this
matter de die in diem, until the plan shall be com-

pleted. The constant presence at the Board of a
gentleman of Mr. PETo's great experience must be
invaluable, and he is entitled to the grateful thanks
of every inhabitant of the metropolitan districts for
the manner in which he has devoted himself to their
service, by giving to them gratuitously the incalculable

advantage of his knowledge, experience, and energy.

In the arrogant aggression of the Roman POEMr
there is something amusing from its very audacity.
The advisers of Pope Plus the NINTH, in this recent
freak of ultramontaneism (for we acquit his HOLINESS
himself, a weak, well-meaning man, of the possession
of sufficient " pluck " to originate a deed of such sin-
gular daring), have reckoned in this instance without
their host. Vaulting :ambition has o'erleaped itself.
It is true that as Jour( BULL was meditating peace-
ably upon things in general, on the state of the money
max ket, the glories to come of the Exhibition of '5l,
his winter's stock of coals, and Christmas cakes and
ale, all at once, without warning, provocation, or the
remotest inkling, he received a sudden slap in the face
that resounded throughout Europe. Little did the
honest man dream that after the late chapter of acci-
dents in the Ausonian land, St. Peter's had
such a shot in the locker reserved for his
especial behoof. It fell not within the com-
pass of his imagination to anticipate that
the Chapelgorries of the Vatican, who, but for " the
holy bayonets of France," would, long ere this, have
been sent skirring out of the gates of Rome, like a
flock of scared flamingoes, with their attendant
swarm,

" White, black, and grey, with all their trumpery,"
by the indignant people, who now unhappily
lie panting beneath their suffocating oppression,
would dare to single him out for the butt
of their fantastic tricks. Would those dearly-beloved
sons of the Church, the Emperor of AUSTRIA, or the
PRESIDENT of the French Republic, who sent the other
diyeutograph epistles of congratulation to his Emi-
nence the Cardinal of St.Pudentiana, permit the Pops
to nominate arbitrarily to a single episcopal appoint-
ment within their respective dominiors ?Or would
the Bishop of Rosu venture upon such an usurpa-
tion of prerogative b any one continental state, Pa-
pisticel or Protestant, to :ay noth;ng of the schismatic
empire of the CZAR ? Unquestionably not, either the
one or the other ; end yet a country, the constitu-
tional Throne of which is based on Protestantism
—the headship of whose,Claurch by law established is
solemnly vested in the SOVEREIGN—which, even prior
to the Reformation, was ever vigilantly jealous of her
rights, religious as well es civil, and abhorrent of the
undue interference or the control of any foreign po-
tentate whatsoever--finds, in the middle of the nine-