rchuilding London, Bridge. 275 



the said bridge, or the alteration of the channels or curreulb ol" 

 the said river, or of the want of water for navigating the same, 

 nor for any tndsance, obstruction, or injury, to be occasioned 

 thereby *." 



But it being understood that the direct taxes might be indi- 

 gestible, that part of the bill is struck out, and a less visible 

 mode of taxation is to be adopted, by allowing the Commission- 

 ers of Customs and of Excite, of England, Ireland, and Scot- 

 land, with consent of the Lords of the Treasury, to remit taxes 

 on stone, brick, timber, or other materials used in building the 

 bridge, and its appurtenajices. For this purpose, the ordinary 

 course of government is to stop, and there is to be a particular 

 interposition ; but the poor people, who may be ruined in their 

 fortunes, diseased by the damps and miasms caused by the 

 saturation of their habitations by frequent floods, or overwhelm- 

 ed by floods, from an inability to provide against them, conse- 

 quent on this revolution of the ancient, and now constitutional, 

 habit of the river, are left to the care of a higher Power, who 

 has set his bow in the heavens as a token. The scheme seems 

 now to be, to pass the act and get up the bridge, relying, in 

 the case of a deficiency of money to rebuild it, that government 

 would be compelled, by the urgency of the occasion, to provide 

 the means. Such a scheme, in respect to the Post-office, 

 failed : but that was a singular case, an exception to the gene- 

 ral success of such policy. 



The new bridge, proposed by the late Mr. Rennie, was 



estimated by him to cost £430,000 



A temporary bridge 20,000 



The purchase of property I On the north side . . . 150,000 



for approaches, i On the south side . . . 150,000 



£750,000 

 This sum, by reference to absolute costs, compared with 

 estimates of other works of the same kind, might with 

 propriety he taken as half the cost, even could we not 

 see the causes from which such an excess would arise, 

 viz., at £1,500,000 



• Those who have built their houses low in the low-lands, and feed their 

 cattle there, the proprietors, and others, who have allowed the foundations 

 of their bridges to be laid at an insufficient depth, are informed that they 

 carae to the river, and not the river to them ; and that they ought, in cbooB- 

 ing such a neighbour, to have provided against snch an event as the pro- 

 posed alteration of the habits of it. 



