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METROPOLITAN IMPROVEMENTS: N°. IV. 
« London Bridge is broken down.”—Old Song. 
Wuite the spirit of improvement is advancing with such rapid strides 
under the auspices of the Board of Works, and the Committee of Taste, 
at the west end of the town, the Aldermen and Common Council of 
the City of London, have not been idle in the east. For more than half 
a century the state, the decay, and the inconveniences of London Bridge, 
have been the subject of discussion at city meetings ; and, from time to 
time, engineers have been employed in surveys, and reports, and on 
estimates for repairs and rebuilding. At length the corporation screwed 
up their courage to the sticking point, and came to the resolution of build- 
ing a new London Bridge, a little to the westward of the old one, which, 
in spite of the interesting chronicles attached to its history, and of all the 
old associations connected with it-in the mind of every good citizen of 
London, from Sir Richard Whittington, down to the entertaining wine 
and walnut collector of its chronicles, was doomed to destruction. 
Plans and estimates were advertised for ; those of the Messrs. Rennie 
approved—the work is now rapidly advancing towards completion, and 
promises, by the solidity of its construction, and the stateliness of its 
appearance, to save the good citizens of London the like trouble for 
many centuries to come. 
It seems, however, to be the fate of the improvements at the east end 
of the town, as well as those at the west end, that difficulties should arise 
in their progress, and unanticipated inconveniences attend their comple- 
tion. For, as at the Treasury, Mr. Soane has given the public the half 
of a building that can never be finished, so have the Messrs. Rennie 
given the good citizens and Southwarkians a noble bridge, without any 
approaches ; and now that the structure is nearly completed, all the mem- 
bers of the Bridge Committee, with the engineers, are laying their heads 
together, to find a way to get at it. In addition to these legitimately 
appointed planners, several volunteers have likewise started with ideas, 
some of which we believe have been laid before, and are actually engaging 
the attention of the Common Council. 
How such an undertaking as that of building a bridge between two 
such populous neighbourhoods, as the city and Southwark, could have 
been carried on, even to the commencement of the building, without 
having ascertained and determined the approaches, we are at a loss to 
guess—and to whom so great a fault is attributable we know not; all 
we do know is that such is the fact, and that, at this moment, there are 
seven or eight plans, to obviate the difficulty, under consideration, 
without any one having yet been determined on. 
In an age of science, like the present, and what is, perhaps, more sur- 
prising, in an age of so much common sense, we cannot help wondering 
that there could be found any body of men to commence an undertaking, 
in which so much property is concerned, and in the completion of 
which a million must be expended, without having taken every circum- 
stance connected with the undertaking into consideration—but that such 
a palpable part of the plan as the approaches on both sides of the bridge 
should not have been accurately ascertained, and completely determined 
before the commencement of the building, would induce the supposition 
that “all the wise men had indeed come from the east” before the new 
London Bridge was thought of. This deficiency is still more surprising, 
when we reflect that the rebuilding of the bridge has been the conversa 
