One of the houses spared the contractors
some trouble, by rattling down, of
its own accord, one day, into the Strand: where
it lay with all its lots merged into a dusty
heap of ruin. The advertisement contractors
and bill posters took possession of the hoarding,
and that part of the Strand is still bright
with the garish colours and violent
contrasts dear to the advertising heart. A
perfect gallery of sensation pictures has taken
the place of the magic donkeys in the affections
of the loafing public. In particular one gorgeous
work has just been hung, so to speak, and
by a curious coincidence in the spot erst
hallowed by the presence of those eccentric
animals, which is worthy of all praise. A most
astounding steeple-chase is coming off amidst
the cheers of an excited multitude. A prodigious
field of horses is undergoing every kind of
sporting disaster, possible and impossible, across
a country of unparalleled stiffness; and the
jockeys (who seem not to have learnt the
rudiments of their art), are to be seen everywhere
but in their saddles. One jockey, just
emerging dripping from a ditch, careless of the
flight of his steed, is pointing out the beauties
of the scene to the spectators, with modest
pride.

The miserable rookeries were speedily
dismantled, and their occupants were driven into
the already overcrowded neighbourhood of
Drury-lane, Short's-gardens, Charles-street
and the like. This is one of our grand
circumlocutional principles, which is always to
unhouse the wretched when room is wanted, and
to take no kind of thought of housing them
again. One side of Clement's-inn was
removed, and the chambers on the east side were
pulled down. Carey-street and Bell-yard each
lost one side, and soon the area was almost
clear. Some few houses still remain; among
them, the mysterious house in the square, the
centre of a few other crumbling ruins. Close
to Clement's-inn still linger a few buildings,
doomed but not yet destroyed: a miserable
sight. Some are roofless and gutted; some
are sections of houses, half pulled down, with
dirty paper still fluttering from the walls.
Others, with which the difficulty appears to be
to keep them standing until their time comes,
are supported by strong timbers, over which
their rotten sides bulge in a suggestive and
alarming fashion. And yet, even here, in the
heart of this desolation, a ricketty public-house
still keeps open; some few houses not so far
gone as others, are still inhabited. An
enthusiastic and enterprising marine store dealer
still exposes his stock of a bundle of rags,
half a dozen locks, a pair of scales, and a
mass of rusty metal. Privileged and secure
the little barber's shop at Temple-bar still
holds its own, and remains untouched.

The speculative nature of the evidence on
which the commissioners had formed their
financial estimate speedily became apparent.
As is not unusually the case under similar
circumstances, property on that particular
spot was found to be remarkable for its
increasing value, and leases (granted in some
cases at dates curiously coincident with the
first suggestion of the Carey- street site), were
discovered to have risen surprisingly in value
during the seven years that had passed over
the heads of the fortunate lessees. Commercial
enterprise must have been having a "good
time of it" north of the Strand and south of
Carey-street. Everybody must have been
doing a roaring trade, and the roaring of the
trade seemed to have all come into being
in that particular seven years. The
commissioners, as we have seen, expressed
themselves satisfied that they could buy the site
and build their law courts, at the comparatively
modest outlay of a million and a half.
The confiding nature of committees and the
ingenuousness of witnesses have rarely been
displayed to better advantage than on this
particular occasion. The sums paid for the site,
up to the present moment, very nearly reach a
total of eight hundred thousand pounds; and
the commissioners now represent this to be
insufficient, and have recommended an application
to parliament for an additional grant of seven
hundred thousand pounds! The buildings will,
doubtless, more than double the pleasant,
but fallacious estimate by which the
commissioners were induced to give the certificate
required by the Act of 1865. It is by no means
surprising, one would say, that the question of
the new Law Courts should be once more
attracting a great deal of public attention.

The commissioners clearly made a terrible
mistake in their calculations, but as that sort
of thing is not altogether unknown in the
history of committees, there is nothing to be
done but to grin and bear it. New Law Courts
in a good position, we must have. If we have
to pay three millions instead of the smaller
sum which we had fondly hoped would be all
that would be required of us, we shall have to
find the money with as good a grace as
possible. But now that the question is once more
presented to us, there is one thing we can do,
and that is, to take the utmost possible pains
to find out in what manner we may get the best
value for our expenditure. At present it is not
possible to deal with the question of the buildings.
The first thing to see about is the spot
where the buildings are to stand; when that is
satisfactorily settled, then will come the time of
the architects and art critics.

Now, what are the special advantages of the
site that has been acquired, and are they such
as to satisfy the public that they have got the
best and most convenient site, not merely for
the legal profession, but for themselves as well?

It would almost seem that the commissioners
of 1858 must have been influenced in their
preference of the selected position to the others
proposed at the same time, simply by the fact
of the positive disadvantages attaching to its
rivals being greater than the manifest objections
to itself. For, it must surely be admitted,
that considered by itself, and not as deriving an
illusory and factitious excellence from being
contrasted with the shortcomings of other places,