the disadvantages of the Carey-street site are
very much more obvious than its advantages.
In the first place—and this is a very
important consideration—the area we have
acquired for our eight hundred thousand pounds
already expended, is ludicrously inadequate to
the requirements of the profession and the
public. Assuming that parliament will vote
the seven hundred thousand pounds now
proposed to be asked for, the ground at the
disposal of the architects would even then be far
too small for the great end in view. If we
are to have new Law Courts at all, and if they
are to cost us the enormous sum to which we
appear to stand irrevocably committed, let us at
any rate have a real Palace of Justice, where
there shall be full accommodation, and to spare,
for judges and barristers, jurymen and
witnesses, suitors and public. Let there be
no stinting of accommodation, no makeshifts,
no turning of lobbies and passages into dim
offices and courts:—expedients which have so
often been forced upon unwilling architects by
the exigencies of contracted space. Our new
Law Courts must, in a word, be everything
that the old Law Courts are not, and the first
requirement is obviously—plenty of space.
Our architects must have plenty of room to
work in; or makeshift work and inferior
accommodation become inevitable.

Light is another very serious requirement.
The Law Courts, if built on the Carey-street
site, might as well, except as far as the
Strand front is concerned, be put down a
tolerably deep shaft. They would on all other
sides be entirely surrounded by buildings, and
on the north-west side the huge bulk of King's
Colllege Hospital would effectually overshadow
that part of the national building. Some
day, also, no doubt there must come extensive
rebuilding on the north side of Carey-street;
and as the houses that will be erected there
will most undoubtedly be considerably loftier
than those which stand there now, the prospect
of daylight is not encouraging in that quarter.
More westerly again are the pleasant
shades of Clare Market, Great Queen-street,
and Drury-lane—not, on the whole, shades
that one would select, and on that side
also, therefore, the look-out is but poor. The
Strand front is, no doubt, good; but the
drawback of the disturbance caused by the
noisy and interminable traffic would, there can
be little doubt, drive the Courts and more
important offices to more retired parts of the
building, and consequently away from its better
lighted portion.

What about the state of affairs outside the
buildings?

The Strand is one of the most crowded
thoroughfares in London, and, even now, is—in
its eastern extremity in particular—totally
inadequate for the stream of traffic constantly
trying to flow through it. Even the removal
of the south side of Holywell-street, or indeed
demolition up to the south side of Wych-street,
would but imperfectly relieve this great artery.
For is there not Fleet-street eastward?—the
narrow, inconvenient, often utterly impassable
Fleet-street?

Except the Strand for the west, and Fleet-street
for the east, the Palace of Justice, Carey-street,
would be entirely without approaches.
From the north there is no approach whatever,
except. Chancery-lane, witn its magnificent
outlet into Holborn already as full as
need be. It is true that the wretched little
alley in question, not wide enough for two
vehicles to pass at one time, is so obviously a
disgrace to the City that its removal cannot be
much longer deferred, and therefore need not
be seriously considered in the discussion of this
question; but, given a proper entrance to
Chancery-lane from Holborn, the lane itself is
by no means large enough for the traffic that
may be expected to flood it on its way to
Carey-street. From Lincoln's-inn-fields, which
itself has no good means of access from
Holborn, the approach to Carey-street is by
villainous little alleys round King's College
Hospital; on the north-west side are the back
settlements of Clare Market. Southward there
is literally no approach for vehicles; the dirty
and frowsy steps at the bottom of Essex-street
being distasteful even to pedestrians.
It is obvious that to utilise the three millions
spent on the Carey-street site, a large
additional expense would have to be incurred in
providing proper approaches to the buildings
from the north, north-west, and south. And
even then we dismiss the consideration of all
the additional traffic attracted by the Law
Courts from the east and west. It is impossible
to estimate what money, if the Law Courts take
the place now designed for them, ought to be
added to the calculation of their cost, in reckoning
the wearisome delay, the loss of valuable
time, the annoyance, the general inconvenience,
and the needless vexation their situation would
inevitably entail.

This matter of convenient approach affects
the legal profession even more than the general
public; it is of the last importance to professional
men that they should be able easily to reach
their places of professional resort, and that
they should be able to calculate the times of
their goings and comings with certainty and
exactness. The new Law Courts are to be
built chiefly with a view to remedy the
inconveniences caused by the separation and
remoteness of the old courts, but with the present
approaches, and with a Strand and Fleet-street
even more crowded than now—if indeed
such a state of things can be—almost all the
advantages hoped for would disappear, and a
vast expenditure of the public money would be
followed by nothing but dissatisfaction and
recrimination.

The Carey-street site, though the best to be
got when the original selection was made, does
not meet the requirements of the case, and is
not satisfactorily adapted to its destination.

What is the alternative?

At the time when Sir George Lewis's
Committee was sitting, Londoners were vaguely
dreaming of the possibility of rescuing the