The Sun.
London, England, 1844-11-18 00:00:00

On Friday a Court of Sewers for the City and
Liberty of Westminster and part of ➢Middlesex, was
held at No. 1, Greek-street, Soho-square, for the con-
sideration of the steps necessary to be taken for ob-
taining contracts on the Ranelagh and Counters'
Creek districts, and for other business, T. L. Donald-
son, Esq., in the chair.
The orders of Court, on the Ist and Bth of Novem-
ber, having been read,
The CHAIRMAN intimated that the next business
before the Commissioners was to order the payment
of 2,0001. to Messrs. Bennett, the contractors, on ac-
count of bills to Michaelmas.
Mr. LESLIE objected to that vote. The Court was
bound to make inquiry before making further pay-
ments, and as Messrs. Doull and Jenkins were not pre-
sent, he should wish them to be called into Court that
he might ask them one or two questions.
The CHAIRMAN, before calling those officers, would
wish to know what specific purpose Mr. Leslie had
in view ?

Mr. LESLIE wished to raise the question of the
measurement of the sewers. He wanted Mr. Doull
to explain to the Court how that measurement was
really done, and what was done. He (Mr. Leslie)
would undertake to prove to the Court that the width
of the digging was never measured. Now there were
three dimensions necessary to be taken before arriving
at the cube, namely, the length, the depth, and the
width. Mr. Doull took only one of those measure-
ments—namely the length, Mr. Jenkins supplied the
average depth, and the third, the width, was taken
not from actual measurement, but from a table by
Mr. Dowley. He (Mr. Leslie) wanted to hear how
Mr. Jenkins did his share, and then he should be pre-
pared with an amendment if necessary.
The CHAIRMAN did not think the Court could en-
tertain the proposition of the Hon. Commissioner,
unless he advanced something more grave—as that
the contractor had acted fraudulently. Granting the
2,0001., would not invalidate any further inquiry, and
in order not to retard the business of the Court, he
thought that unless something stronger should be stated,
than what the Hon. Commissioner had yet advanced
the Court could not attend to it. It would be a pity to
stop the general course of business.
Mr. LESLIE entered a motion upon the subject, and
intimated that if it were overruled, he should put up an-
other.

The motion that Mr. Doull and Mr. Jenkins be called

into Court was put from the chair, and lost by a
majority of four.
Mr. LESLIE had wished to investigate the method in
which bills involving an amount of 40,000 L or 50,0001
of the public money had been got up, but the Court had
refused to allow its own officers to be called into Court.
He would, therefore, put in an amendment ; but in the
course of his experience—and he had been connected
with many public bodies—he never had seen the officers
of any Court refused, where the grounds of the applica-
tion had been so clearly stated.
Captain BACHE rose to order. That subject had been
already disposed of by the Court.
The CHAIRMAN apprehended that the Hon. Commis-
sioner's remarks were merely preliminary to putting his
motion ; and, if so, he was (pike in order.
Mr. LESLIE—They were so ; and
The amendment having been seconded by the Hon.
FREDERICK BYNG, was read by the clerk, Mr. Hertzlet,
and was to the following effect :
" That as the contracts held by Messrs. Bennett were
originally obtained on tenders sent out from the office of
Sewers for Westminster, in 1841, containing a bill of par-
ticulars of entirely fictitious quantities, the gross amount

of Mr. Bennett's -tender for such fictitious works, making
his appear to the Commissioners in Court assembled to
be the lowest and most favourable to the public, when in
point of fact the real quantities show that hie tenders
were not the lowest by many hundreds of pounds, and
it having been discovered that under the contract so
obtained the bills of works done contain many errors and
charges contrary to the terms of the aforesaid contract,
this Court do delay before it signs any further orders
on the treasurer in discharge of the bills, until a full
and complete investigation into the circumstances, docu-
ments, and vouchers be made, and that for the purpose
of an immediate inquiry this Court, at its rising, do adjourn
till to-morrow at ten o'clock, and, if necessary, continue
its sittings on Monday and following days, until the
investigation be completed."
The CHAIRMAN did not see that that was an amend-
ment he could put. It was, in fact, a substantive motion,
containing new matter, and therefore objectionable in
point of form.
Mr. BRANSCOMBE thought that a particular day should
be appointed to investigate the subject.
The CHAIRMAN would put it to the Hon. Commissioner
(Mr. Leslie) if it was really an amendment he could put
there? If it had indeed stopped short, and said that

Finsbury Commission in receiving contracts for works
to be done ; and he was bound to express his obligations
to the officers of that Commission for the very important
information he had received from them—received, toe,
without let or hindrance. He (Mr. Leslie) would not
trouble the lion. Commissioners with isolated cases, as re-
garded the practice in Holborn and Finsbury, for, by
great exertion, he had prepared from their books and
documents returns of works amounting to the enormous
sum of 23,000/. ; and he thought he would have the
support of the Hon. Commissioner, the District Surveyor
for Marylebone, who was present, in carrying out the
prop'isition he would make to the Court. The plan of
the Holborn and Finsbury was not a new or mere
experimental plan, for, under their able and intelligent
surveyor, Mr. Roe, they had built of the new form
twenty-six miles of sewer, six miles of which were only
half-brick thick, in blocks firmly united with the best
Roman cement, In their works none but hydraulic
mortar was used, and' the very best Roman cement. Every
builder, every surveyor, and every man of property, was
concerned in this important question of public drainage;
and he hesitated not to assert, and that without fear of
contradiction, that for every lineal foot of sewer put in
by the Westminster Commission, the same amount of
money, under their better plans, the Holborn and Fins-
bury Commission had put, in two feet. What was the
cause of this mighty difference between two adjoining
Commissions of Sewers ? One cause was in their Act of
Parliament. About thirty years ago the Holborn and
Finsbury got into debt 30,000 L, and they ventured to
make a shilling rate, the rate-payers rebelled, meetings
were held all over the districts, and, under the advice of
the present Mr. Sergeant Wilde and Mr. John Wilks, a
new Act of Parliament for those divisions was obtained.
They were bound under their Act of Parliament to
give twenty-one days' notice to all the vestry-clerks
within their district of the line intended, the day, time,
and place, when the Court would assemble to consider
as to the propriety of ordering the work to be done. In
short, he (Mr. Leslie) said that the most complete and
scientific measurement of the proposed works took place
before the Court were called upon to vote that the work
should be done, so that the parties who had to tender
knew what they had to do. The case in this Court was
just reversed. An estimate was presented by the sur-
veyors, often voted the moment it was read, without any
time for deliberation; the works were all measured after
they were done, and the Court had this day refused to
allow the officers who had measured the works in Bow-
street, included in the accounts, upon which they had
paid 2,oooL—he said they refused to allow Mr. Doull, as-
sistant surveyor, and Mr. Jenkins, the clerk of the works,
to'come into Court to explain how they performed that
important duty. What were the consequences to the
public of the system in this Court ? The surveyors' esti-
mates were mostly exceeded by the actual expense,
often a large amount, sometimes 50 up to 140 per cent.
more than the sum the Court had ordered on those
works. Why, on the Bow-street line, included in the
bills partly paid to day, the estimate was 1,400/, the ac-
tual expense upwards of 2,o6oL—nearly 47 per cent. more
than the Court had ordered. But to return to the more
business-like plan of the Holborn and Finsbury Com-
mission. After the plans, estimates, &c., had been
approved, public advertisements for each particular
work were made. It required, first, the fullest public
notice of where they intended to lay the money out ;
and, secondly, they were bound to advertise the
contracts for the works in question in a certain
number of papers. He would read over not one,
two, ten, or fifteen, but twenty sewers, formed by
that Commission, amounting in all to above 23,000
feet, namely, 12,185 feet of the first, and above 15,000 of
the second class of sewers. He had taken the number of
parties tendering. He had taken the highest and the
lowest tenders, but he did not think it fair to give the
names of the parties. Among them, however, he found
the Messrs. Bennett, to whom they had that day paid
away 2,000 L, contrary to his view of the matter. The
plans and specifications, he might there state, were
accurately drawn out ; the when, where, and how, the
works should begin and terminate; the depths, the levels,
and everything else. The parties who intended to tender
paid a shilling for a printed form, which contained all the
instructions and information required. It seemed to
him a sort of providential interference that the parties
who had tendered for the Ranelagh and Counters Creek
district should have withdrawn those tenders, for that
Court might now save a vast amount of money by adopt-
ing the plan he was going to point out to their conside-
ration. The Hon. Commissioner then read the following
particulars of work in about twenty sewers made under
the direction of, and by the orders of, the Holborn and
Finsbury district; at prices greatly under those of the
Court of Sewers for Westminster. One or two might be
taken as a sample of the whole. One in Museum-street,
for which Messrs. Bennett contracted, came at (every
expense included) 14s. 2d. per foot. Another, a first class
sewer in Kentish-town, in length 3,465 feet with five
side entrances. twelve junctions, twenty gullies, and at a
depth generally of 26 feet, was built for 165.',7d. per foot :

lineal, inclui

:pense.