The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-11-13 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS,

Mr. Horner, who read a paper on "Cast-iron Girders" at the
meeting of the Polytechnic Society, on Monday, wishes us to
say that he "only noticed the comparative cost of arch and
girder bridges under certain circumstances." If the lec-
turer meant to confine his observations to that one point of
comparison, our reporter entirely misconceived the purport
of several of his remarks.
We will not lose sight of the subject referred to by " An
Englishman," but it is disheartening to see the little effect
produced on the public mind by such appeals.
The right of exemption from poors'-rate arises from circum-
stances which vary in the case of each applicant. If "An
Old Subscriber"' can show an entire inability to pay on the
part of any person no doubt th.e parish authorities will take
the subject into their consideration.

c

71 ibtrpc.!o I ... tanbarb.

TUESDAY MORNING, NOT. 13, 184 g

The important letter of Mr. Houseley. read by
Mr. Picton at the Council meeting on Friday, to-
gether with the explanation of Mr. Procter, as to

the sources from which money could be got tc
enable us to compromise with the pipe contractors,
has reduced the question of water supply to some-
• .

thing approaching to a business-like shape
liament, and the sanatory commissioners, require
us to give a supply of 8 million gallons of water
daily, or twenty gallons per ray per head, of our
population. The promoters of the Rivington
scheme tell us that this can only be done by pro-
curing a surface supply at an estimated cost of
£480,000, Geological theorists assure us that the
required water does not exist in the red sandstone.
Mr. Houseley, however, offers to give us this sup-
ply, at no risk of cost to the town in case of failure,
and at a total expence, when he shall have fulfilled
his pledge, of the comparatively trifling sum of
£4B,ooo—just one-tenth of Mr. Hawksley's esti-
mate! The following is his offer :

" Liverpool, November 8, 1849.
" Sir,—l will undertake to increase the supply of water
furnished from the local sources, now belonging to the
Corporation of Liverpool, to the quantity of eight million
gallons per day for the sum of £48,000 ; and in case of not
I will forfeit all claim to
upply required at thr€

Taking the ext

_
a half million gallons per day, T propose obtaining one
and a half million gallons of this by an extension of-the
sinkings at Windsor, and the remaining two millions from
Green-lane, in each case strictly confining the works
within the limits of the Corporation property. When the
additional supply of one and a half million gallons per day
from Windsor is obtained, I should require a payment of
£15,000, the remainder to be paid on the entire supply of
eight million gallons per day being obtained.
`• I am, sir, your obedient servant,
"MOSES HOUSE LEY.
" P.S. The pumping power to be supplied by the cor-
poration."

Add to this eight million gallons per clay the quan-
tity obtained from private wells, estimated by Messrs.
Simpson and Newlands at about two and a half
millions per day, and we shall have a supply of up-
wards of 26 gallons per head per day, or a third more
than the requirements of the sanitory commissioners.
We may further state that the gentleman who makes
this offer is no stranger to the district, nor one un-
acquainted practically with the capabilities of the
strata beneath our feet. He sunk, Mr. Picton tells
us, the well at Windsor, and was a party engaged
in the sinking of the Green-lane works. The very
boldness of his proposal shows his complete confi-
dence in the existence of the local supply.
We put it to all parties whether this easy solution
of the question, which has produced so much ill
feeling in the town, and completelaltered the com-
position of our local legislature, is not worthy of
being entertained. A conclusion of some sort it
would necessarily bring us to, at a most trifling ex-
pense to the- town if unsuccessful, and most cer-
tainly at a very cheap rate if Mr. Houseley's antici-
pations are realized. In the former alternative the
cost of the required pumping power is all that we.
should have to furnish ; and, in any event, we NY, ant
additional pumps. Our present engines are work-
ing beyond their power; and, in the event of any
serious accident occurring to them, the effect of
any lengthened stoppage for repairs would be most
disastrous. Presuming even that we were to decide
now to proceed with the Rivington works, we
scarcely think that, during the period which must
elapse until their completion, the town would be
considered in a safe state, without such means being
provided for us of giving the utmost available sup-
ply to the:inhabitants. Another step, too, we sub-
mit, is imperatiVely called for, whatever course we
may adopt with respect to our sources of supply.
It is scandalous to see a large portion of the present
limited yield of the wells daily run to waste through
the imperfect state of the pipeage in the lower parts
of the town. This evil ought, to be promptly re-
medied in any event; and we presume our hands
are not so tied up by the stringent clauses of the
Rivington act, or our wits so scared by the threat
4:a mandamus, as to prevent our undertaking a
work so obviously called for. Would we be held
altogether guiltless, in the event of another visit of
cholera, or any other similar scourge, if it were
shewn that we wantonly allowed to run to waste a
portion of the very element, for the want of which
our population was dying ?_ Certainly not.

But it is asked, and a doubt insinuated on the
subject, whether Mr. Housley's eight million of
gallons daily would be a permanent supply. The
wells, it is said, would sink in water level year by
year ; but has this fact ever been satisfactorily
proved ? We submit that the evidence thus far
goes to establish a contrary fact. All the past
efforts made, with a very good will to effect that
object, have failed to pump dry the existing wells.
On Saturday nights, after a week's continuous
pumping,the quantityof water has been undoubtedy
reduced ; but the full level has always been re-
:Need before resuming work on the Monday
And it is a well known fact, in accord-
ance with both experience and science, that the
springs flow more abundantly the more the incum-
bentpressure is lightened. We are not at all assured
that if, by the use of more powerful engines, we
could more nearly exhaust the wells every night,
the total yield would not be increased. But even
if it should be the fact that Mr. Housley's increased
supply would only be available for five or ten years
to come, and that at the end of that period we had
to resort to further borings, or even, at last, to resort
to surface water, would it be no boon to the com-
munity, in the present depressed state of commercial
affairs and severe pressure of its existing burdens,
to have an expenditure of probably a million of
money postponed for half a generation of mankind ?
We certainly think that it would be such a boon.

mornings

We cannot close these few remarks without again
impressing upon both parties in the town the im-
portance of mutual forbearance, and a joint effort
to settle this difficult question in a conciliatory
To the now dominant party we would say
with our great dramatist :

1 favour to other communities, our own town seems,

unaccountably, to be regarded as almost unworthy
of a thought.
The post-office has recently adopted an alteration
in the mails, by an acceleration in their speed,
which came into operation on the Ist of November.
By this alteration ati earlier arrival of, and addi-
tional time for sorting the London letters is
afforded to the district around Manchester, and a
later period: for despatching letters to London.
_ _

Additional time is given in Manchester for the
morning mail to the north; which is now despatched
at 2h. 32min. a.m. By a truly happy arrangement
the two north mails arrive at 3h. 42m. a.m., and
7 a.m. respectively • and are delivered at the same
hour One would naturally have imagined that
whilst the time for despatching letters for the
north was extended, in Manchester to 2 32 a.m.
a similar measure of accommodation might have
been extended to Liverpool. We have certainly in
this town as large an intercourse with Glasgow and
other towns in the north as Manchester has. A
great portion of our correspondence, too, is of that
description which cannot always be carried out at
a regular and early hour, being dependent on
foreign arrivals. For example, we might have had
early this morning, as we had last Tuesday morn-
ing, a mail from the United States and Canada, in
both of which countries the merchants of Glasgow
are largely interested. Yet London, by even the
old arrangement, would have the news early this
afternoon, whilst in Glasgow it would not be re-
ceived until to-morrow morning. We are not,
however, allowed our former opportunities, miser-
able as they were. The very same measure which
gives Manchester a later hour for the despatch of
the mail to the north, curtails the time given pre-
viously to Liverpool. A foreign mail arriving here
at eleven o'clock in the evening would be too late
for transmission to the north. Yet the same train,
for which we have now to go to press at eleven
o'clock, and which would take the news by such
an arrival, takes on the mail which does not leave
Manchester until half-past two in the morning !

•
What is the reason of this disparaging treatment
of the important interests of Liverpool? Simply
this. The post-office authorities consider us of so
little weight that they will not afford us a railway,
convenience for this north mail. The correspond-
ence of Liverpool with the sister port of Glasgow,
and the whole of the north of England and Scot-
land, is only deemed worthy of being trundled
along to Warrington, at the rate of some six or
seven miles an hour, in a mail cart ! We are at
the mercy for all our communications in that
direction of a linchpin, which might be lost, (and
at midnight be it remembered,) a horse that might
cast a shoe, or any similar often-occurring accident.
Nay, so far as regards newspapers, which offer the
most available means for conveying the important
commercial, and other news received by foreign
mails, after eleven o'clock at night, the press of
Liverpool has its hands completely tied up for
upwards of three hours, whilst the press of Man-
chester, by the aid of the telegraph, might transfer
it to their columns, and thus be the exclusive
means of its circulation.

We trust that the mercantile community will not
submit tamely to this insulting and injurious treat-
ment; and we may urge, at the same time, the
great desirableness of their being joined in their
protest against it by their brethren in the commer-
cial metropolis of the north. 'The inconvenient
arrangement of the mails between the two towns
has long been an intolerable grievance. The time
in which a reply will be received from Glasgow to
a communication from Liverpool, however impor-
tant, can never be depended upon; and most men
.of business in the two towns give a latitude of a day
at least for such a reply. We are ourselves
continually receiving letters from Glasgow the
second day after their date, obviously written under
the impression that we should get them on the
first after, and frequently creating great disappoint-
ment and injury both to the writers and recipients.
In fact, to such an extent does the inconvenience.
and uncertainty exist that many, who have im-
portant business to perform in either place, prefer
putting themselves on board a steamer, and tran-
sacting it Oemselves in person, to trusting its
execution to the uncertainty of our present postal'
arrangements. All this could be amended by the
most trifling addition to the present post-office
expenditure, and such an alteration in their hours-
of arrival and departure as would secure to us, in
reality, the advantages of a night and a morning-
mail. To say that we poSsess those advantages
whilst letters, by both 'come, as at present, into
the same delivery, is a mockery.

It is an unfortunate fact, that few great public
measures, however they may be adapted to pro-
mote the general good, are capable of being carried
into operation without inflicting some individual
wrong. Such a measure, that appears to be for the
construction of timber docks along the Bootle
shore. The site of these docks, to the north of the
dock estate, is said to be, so far as their connexion
with the internal markets of the country is con-
cerned, more convenient than the existing southern
docks. The London and North-Western Company
have now a railway connexion with this end of the
town. The termini of the Lancashire and York-
shire, and the East Lancashire lines, are in this
neighbourhood ; and the Liverpool and Leeds
canal has been brought into connexion with the
new northern docks.. We have the land for these
works at an unquestionably cheaper rate than we
have ever before procured it. We are to have, too,
in this neighbourhood, floatage room for timber,
and more inexpensive quay space ' advantages
which are of inestimable value, and which would
be accepted with infinite satisfaction by the trade,
and by consumers throughout the country, but for
the fact to which we have referred, that individual
injury must be submitted to, as the price of the
public advantage to be derived from the works in
question. Investments in land and buildings at
the south end of the dock estate have been entered
into, certainly not on the faith, but undeniably on
the supposition, that the timber trade would con-
tinue in its present location ; and, to those who
have made such investments, any change will be
disastrous. Again, the northern shore has been
appropriated in a certain way, not with a view to so
early an encroachment upon it of the trade of the
port; and not a . little,individual suffering will be
the result of the.works now in progress, which are
completely changing its Character, and the adapta-
tion of the property built upon it for' present pro-
fitable uses.

We are not about to canvas now the question
whether the north or the south portion of the dock
estate is the best adapted for that important branch
of the commerce of the port, the timber trade.
Were that trade to be located anew, or could the
question as to north and south be divested of indi-
vidual interests, we do not think that we should
have much difficulty in determining upon our
course; and, perhaps, that would be to allow our
powerful friends in the south to fight their own
battle, for which they have recently shewn them-
selves to possess very powerful capabilities. For-
tunately, however, we are spared this task. The
question is not as to the removal of the timber
trade from the south. It is rather a fact as to the
construction of docks in the north ; and its effect
upon some unfortunate parties having property
located in that direction. In behalf of these parties
we feel ourselves impelled to offer a few remarks.
The property bordering upon the shore, from the
first toll-bar on the Bootle road to some distance
beyond our landmarks, has been, it is well known
to Liverpool readers, used for the erection of ma-
WE have for some time been of opinion that rine cottages and villas. The tenure of the land is
there exists at the head quarters of government an leasehold for three lives, with a remaining term of
especial disinclination to accommodate the great 21 years, under the Earl of Derby ; and one of the
commercial community of Liverpool. Of course, most substantial elements of the value of such land
the convenience of the whole kingdom is ever has always been its marine character, and the un-
condary to that of the inhabitants of the metro- restricted use of the shore and enjoyment of the
. This is particularly the case with respect to river view by its occupants. Another feature con-
_ arrangements of the post-office. These are netted with the property on this shore is the fact
altered continually; mails are accelerated, or addi- that a large portion of it is either owned or occu-
tional ones put on with a view to the accommoda- pied by parties—widows, retired persons, and others
tion of London alone. The West India mails are —who derive from it their sole or chief means of
despatched via Southampton that the London support. Now, if a railway, or any other company
merchant may have an opportunity of availing possessing an act of parliament, had projected
himself of the latest moment for his correspond- works to destroy a portion, however imaginary, of
ence, to the utter disregard of the claims of the value of such property, compensation must
Liverpool, Manchester, and Glasgow. We have have been made. Such act of parliament would
been deprived of our Irish mail, which is transferred inevitably have contained a jury clause; and the
to Holyhead, for the accommodation of London owners of the property would probably have ob-
alone, although Liverpool may be said to possess tained excellent terms. But here the contracting
three-fourths of the business traffic with the sister parties seem to have been only the Earl of Derby
isle; and we should undoubtedly witness the trans- and the Liverpool Dock Committee. The latter
fer of the American mails to the metropolis) if say, "We wish to carry out our dock wall morth-
al:lather eunard's line could be got up there to wards to the Rinkrose Hotel; we shall, in doing so,
cam them. The accommodation, of London, we close up the river View of the whole of your lessees;
repeat, is the one grand object of every change in and we offer to you, in consideration df our being
this dePartment; yet, when it is dealing out its allowed to do so, to form certain blocks for streets,

To have a giant

" tis excellent
strength ; but tyrannous

'o use it like a giant."

They have now a clear numerical majority, both in
the town and in the council. Let them not attempt
to ride roughshod over their opponents, when they
can so well afford to act calmly and temperately.
And upon the advocates of the Pike scheme we
would urge the propriety of acting towards the ad-
vocates of local supply with somewhat less of a
dogmatic spirit. Let us have no more attempts to
dragoon the town, by applications to a court of law,
into a measure against which it has just made so
unmistakeable a protest. If the pro-Pike party
are right in their views, time will show that they
are so; and they have now before them the light-
ness of the cost and the inconvenience at which

the experiment can be made