Police arrangements can only mitigate an
intolerable and increasing evil. No number of
police, no police regulations, can squeeze a
quart into a pint. Subterranean railways, at
a cost of half a million a mile, may do
something to diminish the wheeled traffic; but, so
far, they have increased the goods traffic of the
streets.

At present, says the Report, "within the
City, there is hardly a leading thoroughfare
which is equal to the traffic that passes through
it." And this is not extraordinary, when it is
considered that a number equal to half the
male population of the whole metropolis, daily
pass in and out of the one square mile
composing the City.

The only real remedies after the formation
of new thoroughfares, and the widening of those
in existence, would be, Mr. Haywood lays down
as of pressing importance, the construction of
two new outlets.

The densest streams of traffic might be
traced from a balloon, flowing along a few
lines between the north and south, and between
the east and west. At present all the traffic
which passes the Bank without halting there,
must go through the narrow defiles which, as it
were, protect that edifice in a military point of
view.

Mr. Haywood proposes to tap the most
important branch of the great stream which now
flows through Newgate-street into Cheapside, at
the east end of his Holborn Viaduct, by a new
street seventy feet wide (for busy traffic, he
considers a greater breadth a mistake), which
would cross St. Martin's-le-Grand north of the
Post-office, cross Moorgate-street, near Finsbury,
absorb and widen London-wall, cross Bishops-
gate-street-within and the classic regions of
Houndsditch and Petticoat-lane, and, at
Whitechapel High-street, emerge exactly opposite
the new street now being constructed by the
Metropolitan Board of Works to the Commercial-
road, which serves all the populous and
busy Dock region.

To understand the importance of this
proposal, the reader has only to take a map of
London, and trace a line upon it by the above
directions. This street would be level, and
about a mile and a quarter long.

The only building of importance destroyed
would be Christ's Hospital. The sooner that
great charity boarding-school follows Charter
House to green fields and running water, the
better for the charity, for education, and for the
funds of the school.

The principal stream of north-south traffic,
created by a commerce daily increasing, finds
its way by slow degrees over London-bridge.
Southwark-bridge, occupying a sort of corner
with very steep gradients on the Middlesex
side, is used chiefly for foot-passengers and
light vehicles. Blackfriars-bridge, with
excellent means of access, will, in its new
shape, be equal to any probable demand
upon its capacity. But London-bridge is
the one broad way for the dense and
specially commercial population which clusters
along the Thames and its docks on both
sides, and spreads far into Essex on the north,
and to Kent, on the south side, five miles. The
combined population served by one bridge, with
a carriage-way of only thirty-five feet width,
approaches a million. But figures do not present
the traffic arising from ships from every port in
the world, bringing and taking away cargoes.
To spoil the bridge (architecturally) by taking in
the footpath would only add nineteen feet to the
roadway. Therefore Mr. Haywood—practical
man as he is, and fully counting the cost—
concludes that there is but one remedy for this
profit-eating congestion of traffic: a new bridge
—lower down than London-bridge. This bridge
should be on the eastern side of the Tower,
and, with its approaches, would open a clear
line between Shoreditch and the Old Kent-
road. Thus serving all the heavy dock traffic
on both sides of the river.

Such are the ideas of an engineer and architect
whose whole life has been spent in studying
and working out the wants of the City.
They are costly, as every City improvement must
be; but the character and experience of the
author guarantee that they are not extravagant.
He knows the value of every brick he
proposes to remove.

The first and greatest difficulty will be to
make the municipal authorities feel how
certainly their existence depends on real work.
For if, as heretofore, they only deliver flatulent,
ungrammatical speeches, others will
take their powers and their means, and leave
them only their bare benches and their ample
dinners.

The next difficulty lies in the want of
funds.

Paris has an emperor, a prefect, and a city
tax (octroi) on all that is eaten and drunk
and burned within its limits. The emperor
and the prefect (practically there is a
municipal council, but it only advises softly),
with a map, settle the broad ways and the
near cuts. Let any one compare a map of
Paris for 1852 and 1862 to see what has been
done.

The octroi produces something like three
millions sterling every year, and on this income a
proportionate debt is raised. So far, the revenue
has risen faster than the expenditure. Paris,
made clean and splendid, attracts visitors and
workmen to serve visitors and execute improvements,
who consume: thus creating and paying
the taxes destined to new improvements. In
London a coal-tax, divided between the rival
powers, the Common Council and the Metropolitan
Board, produces some three hundred thousand
a year, to aid local taxation. Therefore
London cannot rival Paris. But if the City
had, instead of its overgrown little parliament,
a compact council like Liverpool or Leeds, these
two ideas of Mr. Haywood would soon assume
a brick-and-mortar shape, and, on the strength
of such outward and visible signs of strength,
the citizens of London might confidently