1884.] Sir F. Bramwell on London (below bridge) Commiimcation. 483 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, February 22, 1884. 



Sir William Bowman, Bart. LL.D. F.R.S. Honorary Secretary and 



Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Sir Frederick Bramwell, F.R.S. V.P. Inst.C.E. M.B.I. 



London (beloiu bridge) North and South Communication. 



Two towns A and B, situated on the opposite banks of a tidal river. 

 The current even at springs never great. The width never more 

 than 440 yards. These towns have river frontages of some six and 

 a half miles. Not inconsiderable towns, therefore — far from it ; in fact 

 one of them has a population of 890,000, and the other a population 

 of 655,000. Each, therefore, greater than Manchester, or Liverpool, 

 or Birmingham, as large as Dublin or Glasgow, larger than Dresden 

 Milan, Rome, and other capitals or celebrated cities; and, taken 

 together (the true way of considering them), more than half the size of 

 Paris, larger than Berlin or than Vienna; yet, strange to relate, no means 

 are provided by which a carriage can go from one town to the other 

 or, indeed, by which a foot passenger can (with one trifling exception) 

 walk from one side of the river to the other, unless the passeno-er, or 

 the driver of the carriage, is willing to journey from whatever part of 

 the town he may be in, to the extreme west, where he will find a 

 bridge. Moreover, the inhabitants of these two towns are not at war, 

 for they are the subjects of one Sovereign, — in fact, they are practi- 

 cally members of one municipality ; they speak the same language, thus 

 there is no frontier custom-house, not even an octroi, and no need 

 therefore to keep up a separation either for the prevention of invasion, 

 or of smuggling, nor is intercourse limited by the necessity of an 

 interpreter. 



Where can these two towns be situated ? Large as they are, must 

 they not be the decaying remains of some two cities in the far east, 

 Persia or China, from which all energy is absent ? In the far east as 

 understood by the world outside England they are not, but they are 

 indeed cities in the far east, according to the views of most of the 

 audience I have the honour of addressing to-night. The designa- 

 tions of their subdistricts and streets, although relieved at rare 

 intervals by such pleasant names as Cherry Garden Stairs and 

 Nightingale Lane, are, as a rule, barbarous and uncouth : Tooley 

 Street, the home of the three tailors ; Horselydown ; Dockhead ; 

 Jacob's Island (see 'Oliver Twist'); Rotherhithe ; Pickle Herrino* 

 Stairs, on the one side ; — East Smithfield ; Ratcliff Highway ; Wappin<y 



