Originally published in St. James's Magazine (W. Kent) vol.2 #4 (Nov 1861).
Having already described the railway system—present and prospective—of the metropolis, I proceed to point out some of the improvements necessary in other respects to render London a city as convenient as it is large and populous. Its inhabitants need not hope ever to have a beautiful city; the metropolis has converged from too many distinct building centres to have had any consistent plan. It has none of the superb structures of imperial Rome, of the gay boulevards of Napoleonic Paris, nor of the tree-lined parades of stately Berlin. But urban magnificence has rarely been met with among a really self-governing people; it needs one master-hand capable of designing, with a hand powerful enough to enforce submission to the design. Free building enterprise is impossible under such a regime; and to lose the liberty of individual action for the sake of an improved capital, would be an exchange very much indeed for the worse. Our city is fairly typical of ourselves, and of our independence of central control. Each citizen who becomes possessed of a piece of ground builds upon it to his own taste, or as he considers most conducive to his own profit; and so long as his operations do not interfere in a marked degree with the comfort of his neighbours, he is not hindered by public opinion in behalf of any general principle. Such a system has its advantages in affording scope to individual self-reliance; but it is ruinous to the architecture of a town, and its results are apparent in every one of our great thoroughfares. Oxford Street is an example: the site admirable, the road long, straight, of ample width, and nearly on a level from end to end: had the houses been only built on some general plan it might have borne comparison with any street in the world. But, as it is, scarcely two adjacent houses have the same elevation; the cornice in one, if continued, would bisect a window in its neighbour; and the latter's shop-front. extends, perhaps, to a greater height than the first-floor windows of his vis-à-vis; while, as to colour, there are to be seen houses of every possible shade—from white, through yellow and brown, almost to black.
Still, we are not likely to be able to alter this, and therefore the energy of the governing bodies—and what power they possess—should be directed to improving the communications between the different parts of London. The railways which are to aid have been detailed; but much besides railways is essential before traffic can pass rapidly from-point to point without constant impediment. If a circle be drawn round the Bank, with a radius of half a mile, and another of similar size round Charing Cross, we shall have the two spaces of densest traffic delineated with tolerable accuracy, towards or from which as centres—or between them—almost all vehicles are proceeding. One great object, then, is to secure as free communication as possible between these, and especially to give access from one district to the outer portions of the other without the necessity of crowding through its centre.
At present the only communication between West and East lies through Oxford Street, Holborn, and Skinner Street; or through the Strand, Fleet Street, and Ludgate Hill—both routes being singularly narrow and inconvenient. That the width of a road is its narrowest part is a maxim which applies most emphatically to crowded thoroughfares: for at that point the stoppage of course takes place, and the width in other portions is unused while the traffic filters through the narrow neck. Thus the Strand is practically but a contracted lane, from the obstruction of Temple Bar: and Holborn, otherwise a fine street, is reduced to a paltry way by the absurd protrusion of a block of houses opposite Gray's Inn Lane. Here are two hinderances to free intercourse which should fall the first victims to improvement. The houses in Holbom have nothing to allege in stay of destruction; they are obtrusively in the way, and have not a single recommendation in the way of beauty, importance, or association—Down with them! Temple Bar, on the other hand, is dangerously near the Society of Antiquaries, and the feelings of that venerable body might be outraged by its demolition, for it is, in truth, a municipal monument. But it is a monument of no intrinsic beauty in itself, and has no real antiquity—for its age has not yet reached two centuries. The reminiscences it awakes are little else than a series of political treasons or murders, personally commemorated by rows of heads rotting on the spikes which adorned its summit. The only use now of the unsightly structure is to mark the point where the City ends—and the sooner that line of civic dominion is obliterated the better will it be for the whole metropolis. Why, then, should Temple Bar continue to hinder us as we enter or leave the City? And why should it not forthwith be swept away before the spirit of improvement, at whose shrine many a more interesting memorial of the past has had to be offered already?
But no widening of existing thoroughfares will afford any sensible easing to our gorged streets, unless some new routes are also opened. Holborn and the Strand might have sufficed for the traffic a hundred years since; but ten thousand cabs and omnibuses were not plying in those days—the vans of the great carriers had not commenced to move like cars of Juggernât through the narrow streets; and shops did not then line every road, inviting the stoppage of carriages and the consequent obstruction of the way. New means of reaching the City are unquestionably required.
Steps in the right direction have been taken in opening Cannon Street—a fine specimen of what a city street should be—and, in a less degree, in the new street from Cranbourn Street to Covent Garden; but the latter will be of comparatively little use until it is extended to the wide portion of the Strand at St. Clement Danes. When that is done, the Strand will doubtless be relieved of the whole traffic intended for Piccadilly, Regent Street, and the north-west, the block being reduced to Fleet Street, Ludgate Hill and Cheapside, which, however, are sufficient in themselves and their straits to make minutes quarter-hours in the journey from one part of town to another. A corresponding diagonal Way should be made from Cranbourn Street or Long Acre into Holborn, so as to bring the carriages of the northern half of the City directly into Charing Cross. And then, again, if Long Acre could be extended eastward in a line passing south of Newgate, and so towards the Mansion House, a great intermediate communication would be opened, affording incalculable relief both to the Holborn and Fleet Street routes.
To the south of the Strand, Parliament has already decided that new access to the City shall be given along the Thames Embankment. This embankment will indeed be a great work, worthy of the capital of the British Empire. Robbing the Thames of many acres of its muddy bank, it will at once benefit stream and shore—the river, by increasing its scour and, therefore, depth; the land, by adding magnificent wharves, public pleasure-gardens, capacious docks, and, above all, a superb road leading from Westminster Bridge into the City at Blackfriars, while intermediate parts will of course be provided for by occasional transverse approaches. In addition to these, the Embankment will contain the low-level intercepting sewer, which can be constructed contemporaneously with itself, and will render unnecessary the now threatened catastrophe of having the Strand and Fleet Street shut up for months while this low-level sewer is built beneath them. How great an area will be reclaimed from the water may be imagined from the fact, that the Embankment will comprise at Hungerford all that lies between the steamboat pier and the present bank; and when it is remembered that the whole, or nearly the whole, of this space is now uncovered at low tide, exhaling fetid and unwholesome odours, few will refuse to perceive the advantages of the change. Some of the landmarks with which Londoners are familiar will, however, appear curiously shifted. We shall find it difficult to think of the present Temple Gardens 200 feet away from the river, or of Buckingham Gate as an inland monument buried among houses. Of course, the Thames Embankment must be connected with the great centres to develop its full importance;—a way to it from Charing Cross will have to be opened, and at the opposite end a street must cut obliquely from the foot of Blackfriars Bridge, near the Times office, into the very heart of the City. As regards the Westminster extremity, Victoria Street constitutes an admirable main through which the traffic of Belgravia, Pimlico, and Kensington, will flow down towards the City, and from which it will be able to fork off according to taste along Whitehall to the Strand route, by the Embankment, or into the road, which I am about to describe, on the south side of the river.
Cabmen, and a few inhabitants, seem to monopolise the knowledge that the shortest way between the cities of London and Westminster lies on the Surrey side of the Thames, through Lambeth, Lower Marsh, and the New Cut; the route only requires the completion of a new street, which is already in hand, through Southwark, to render it as wide and commodious a way as any of the others. For Thames Street, Whitechapel, and the eastern part of the city, it is undoubtedly the most direct and quickest communication, as by it we have only the crowding on London Bridge to overcome, and avoid the densest pack in the northern route—viz., that from St. Paul's to the Bank.
It is to be hoped that these five communications—if ever they are completed—will so divide the traffic among them, that the diluted portion rolling along each will be no more than it can conveniently accommodate. If another should still be necessary, there will remain the Surrey side of the stream to embank and turn into a causeway, although, from the convexity of its curve, it will offer few of the advantages attendant on embanking the Middlesex shore. But it is not alone in new thoroughfares that we are promised additional conveniences. There is a project on foot for establishing an underground parcels-delivery, by atmospheric pressure through large pipes: a scheme which, under the title of Pneumatic Despatch, I shall hope to describe more fully in a separate article. If this design is successful, it will remove much of the postal and parcel traffic from the streets to below them, abolishing a corresponding proportion of the lighter carts which now throng every important road; the gain in time being inestimable, both as regards the goods sent through the tube, and the passengers no longer hindered in the streets above. Then, again, the experiment is being tried of tramways along the wider roads; and there is no saying how they may revolutionize the appearance of our streets. As yet, however, it is but an experiment, and no decision can be formed on its merits, as adapted to London, till the tramway shall have settled in certain parts into one of the acknowledged modes of transit, and be no longer an object of wondering curiosity. There can be no doubt that the great diminution of friction from the employment of rails enables vehicles to acquire a far greater speed than they can on ordinary roads; but, as the tramway appears to involve the introduction of huge conveyances, like railway carriages, which roll noisily along the street at considerable pace, and can scarcely pull up soon enough to avoid running down objects in their path, it may be doubted whether the alteration is wholly advantageous.
Let it be assumed, however, that routes enough are opened; half the work before us will still be undone, unless we are secured the use of them, and are protected against the constant obstruction of "pipes up." Now, the stoppages are perpetual; the pavement is disturbed either for the mains of a water company, or a gas company, or a telegraph; or, if these fail, the drainage, or else the paving itself, is sure to want attending to. With these hinderances, with the threatened Pneumatic Despatch coursing along beneath us, through a tube as thick as a water-main, and with the occasional addition of pipes for some new company competing in one of the present trades—or even, for aught we can say at present, laying on some now unappreciated element—it can scarcely happen that a street escapes opening at one point or another for more than a month together. And when this opening does take place, the nuisance of holes in the surface, of pickaxes flying about, of gas escaping, of hoardings, lanterns, flaring lights and swearing navvies, is too familiar and too universally palpable to need description. Improvement will be only imperfectly carried out until this perennial—I might almost say weekly—source of detention is removed; and there is but one way in which that can be satisfactorily done—by the formation of sub-ways.
Sub-way is but another name for tunnel, and the proposed sub-ways are tunnels delving beneath the roads, capable of containing the drains and the pipes necessary for all the different operations carried on underground, Access to them will be provided at sufficiently frequent intervals, and, like the present principal drains, they will be made of sufficient size to be traversed in any direction. When the pipes are laid in proper order along these channels, it will be no longer necessary to take up half a street to renew one joint, or to find the point in a telegraph-wire where the isolation has become imperfect; and the repairs will of course be executed at a mere fraction of the expense now involved. The advantages sub-ways offer to the different companies who now bury their pipes in the streets are so obvious, that it seems strange they do not unite voluntarily to construct them for their own use; but, whether from dislike to concurrent action, or from the natural inanition of corporate bodies, there appears little probability of such a measure being adopted, unless Parliament invest the municipal authorities with compulsory powers. Not long since, when a water or gas company was about to lay its pipes down Regent Street, and when that important thoroughfare would necessarily be stopped for several weeks, to the great loss of its shops and inconvenience of the public, the Vestry of St. James's parish endeavoured to induce the companies to join in making a sub-way, offering at the same time to contribute a handsome proportion of the cost; but the companies refused to co-operate. These great corporations have such an advantage over the local government, in virtue of their wealth, that it is idle for the latter to attempt to coerce them, unless armed with superior powers to those at present given by the Metropolis Local Management Act.
Under the new streets in Covent Garden and Southwark, constructed by the Metropolitan Board of Works, sub-ways have been formed, and doubtless their utility will be by degrees acknowledged. The usual form for a sub-way is a three-arched tunnel, the centre archway being considerably larger than the others. The centre arch acts as the main-sewer of the district, and receives constant tributaries as it passes on. By the side of the sewage channel is a raised causeway for the passage of attendants or workmen; while doors communicate with the side arches, where the pipes for gas, water, telegraphy, and other things, are laid on transverse iron beams intended to prevent them from pressing unduly on each other. With sub-ways the surface interruptions are reduced to a minimum, as it can only be necessary to disturb the road in the case of faults between the main and the houses lining it; even in this event, where the house-cellars project as far as the side of the sub-way, there is direct communication, and no disturbance is requisite.
There is a want in London—of far less magnitude, but, nevertheless, severely felt by pedestrians, and especially by ladies—the means of crossing crowded streets, in which carts and carriages pass and repass almost without cessation. Those who do not see the official returns can have little idea of the number of serious accidents which occur every week to persons attempting to cross the roads of the metropolis—accidents often resulting in life-long injuries, and, not unfrequently, in death. The evil admits of simple remedy, and that without great expense. Light wire foot-bridges thrown across at a few of the most crowded intersections of thoroughfares—as, for instance, Oxford Circus, the Mansion House, and at the statue of King William the Fourth—would give all requisite guarantees for safety, while the erections themselves would, if tastefully constructed, add as much to the beauty of the street as to the comfort of nervous or infirm passengers.
There are other minor matters requiring attention; but I have detailed the principal works necessary to make the communications of London what they should be; and the reader will admit, that with new streets, the embankment, sub-ways, and foot-bridges, the programme of actual necessities—with the addition of the main drainage, already in course of execution—is quite as extensive and costly as the most enthusiastic improver could desire. The expense of such operations is to be estimated by millions, and many years must elapse before the local revenues can defray the whole. What and how derived those revenues are, and in what manner they press upon the householder, is the next point for consideration.
The tax most seriously felt, and which equals in amount, or is greater than, all other local taxes put together, is the Poor-rate. That burden falls most unequally upon the different districts of the metropolis, ranging from one shilling and tenpence to ten shillings, or even more, in the pound on the annual value of property; and, moreover, by an unfortunate perversion of equity, always weighting to the heaviest amount the parish least capable of sustaining any such incubus at all. The following is an example of the many inequalities involved in the present Poor Law. The parish of St. George, Hanover Square, employs a vast number of labourers—as masons, carpenters, and in similar industrial occupations: but, from its general wealth and the size of its buildings, comparatively few are housed within its precincts, the result being that, in their times of distress, these poor men become chargeable to the less opulent neighbouring parishes in which they have been able to establish their domiciles. But the subject of Poor-rates is too extensive for my limits; and I need only observe, that among London's wants is some measure by which the burden of supporting the indigent shall be made lighter to the poorer districts, in being equalized throughout the metropolis.
Irrespective, then, of the Poor-rate, the local revenue of the metropolis is estimated to amount to £1,528,000 (equal to the national income in the time of the Commonwealth), of which about a million and a quarter is raised by direct taxation in the form of Police-rate, County-rate, Main Drainage-rate, Lighting and Paving rates, &c., and the remainder accrues indirectly from dues levied on coal, corn, and wine. The produce of direct taxation is, of course, intended for special objects, and is absorbed in carrying them out. The sum resulting from indirect taxation has scarcely any other charges against it than the cost of collection, and is available for any purpose. The history of these dues—usually known as the London Coal, Corn, and Wine Dues—is curious. From time immemorial the City authorities have been allowed fourpence per ton (chaldron used to be the standard) on all coal brought within a certain boundary, now fixed as conterminous with the Police District, but till this year embraced in a circle, of which the radius was 20 miles from the Post Office. In return for this contribution to their income, the Corporation was bound to maintain a sufficient number of coal-meters; and the certificate of these meters that the coal had passed through their hands was a guarantee anywhere that the coal was of full weight. During the troublous reigns of the Stuarts the City ran heavily into debt, principally from exactions of the Crown. Charles II. borrowed a large sum of money, which, under a municipal law, had been deposited with the Corporation by widows and orphans of citizens; and as it never occurred to his frolicsome Majesty to repay it, the helpless clients were in considerable danger of losing their means of living. After struggling still deeper into the abyss of debt, a petition was made to Parliament, in the reign of William the Third, praying for relief; whereupon an Act passed declaring the City insolvent, fixing its debts, and converting them into a perpetual annuity, partly chargeable on City property, and partly to be raised through a temporary additional duty on coal and wine brought into the port of London. This temporary duty was continued from time to time, and the sum to be paid by the City reduced: the Coal and Corn duties increased with the growth of the metropolis, so as not only to pay off the debts of the Corporation, but also to provide large sums for the construction of Blackfriars Bridge and London Bridge Approaches. In 1831, the metage functions connected with the dues were abolished; so that the charge, which then stood at one shilling and a penny on each ton of coal, became an absolute tax. By an Act of 1861, the Coal and Wine dues are continued till 1872, ninepence of the coal-tax, representing about £168,000 a year, and the wine dues of 4s. 9½d. per ton, equivalent to £9,000 per annum, being devoted to the Thames Embankment; while the remaining fourpence on coal goes to pay the debt still due in regard to Cannon Street, and is then to be applicable to metropolitan improvements generally. It will be seen from this, that, having provided for the Thames Embankment, there will remain of the revenue, as at present raised, less than £80,000 a year for the next ten years, which can be used in new works; and it is generally admitted that the property within the metropolitan area is taxed as heavily as it will bear. There is, however, a further sum of £45,000 which should, in justice, be made over to some such purpose, unless it be entirely remitted. The great wear and tear of the roads in London is from omnibuses and cabs: yet the duty raised on these conveyances all goes to the Exchequer. But this is not the only grievance: in the metropolis, public carriages are taxed twice as heavily as elsewhere; and the municipality should therefore derive the benefit of at least this extra portion of the duty. If this amount could be added, there would then be an annual sum of £125,000 at the disposal of the Metropolitan Board of Works—not much, when the services to be performed are considered, but sufficient, with economy, to provide for very extensive alterations. An improvement is not necessarily all outflow of money, for, after a certain time, the rents of buildings adjoining an improved street should give a fair return on the capital invested in the purchase of inferior houses. It is, therefore, practicable to borrow the money requisite for the formation of a street, mortgaging the future rents as security, and the annual sum necessary is then only what may be wanted for the payment of interest on the loan until the property becomes reproductive.
Lastly, it will be interesting to glance at that department of the government of the metropolis which is charged with carrying out improvements. Under Sir Benjamin Hall's Act of 1855, the Metropolis constitutes, for purposes of Works, a sort of Federation of independent parishes and districts of amalgamated parishes. Each of these is governed locally by a Vestry, or District Board, which has power over all purely local works, such as drainage, paving, lighting, &c., and is charged with raising the funds necessary for them. These Local Boards elect members to represent them at the Metropolitan Board of Works, which consists of forty-five members, and is a sort of Municipal Parliament. Very large powers—though as yet insufficient powers in some respects—are entrusted to this General Council—as the superintendence of the main drainage works, and the discussion of all questions of buildings or roads which involve public metropolitan interests. The sessions are held at handsome offices in Spring Gardens, and when it is remembered how important to ourselves, and our descendants for many generations to come, are the results of their discussions, it will be seen how very essential it is that in the election of members every householder should take the utmost care to secure the return of a representative possessing not probity only, but ability as well.