156 Metropolitan Improvements. [Fes. 
hood, the most feasible plan that the Committee, under the circum- 
stances, could adopt ; while the venerable church of St. Saviour’s, sur- 
rounded by a series of modern handsome buildings, will gratify the 
curious in architecture, and greatly add, by its beauty, to the improve- 
ment. 
As pounds, shillings, and pence are, however, in the opinion of John 
Bull, paramount arguments in all questions of improvement, we may, 
perhaps, cite the economy of this plan as the most hkely argument in 
favour of its adoption. Stairs, in the dry arch, to lead up to the High 
Street, in addition to the street to lead under it, would greatly diminish 
the claims of the occupiers of premises in Tooley Street, for loss of busi- 
ness in consequence of the elevated level of the new bridge ; and the 
formation of a new road*leading thereto, would most likely produce the 
means of acquiring an increase of business, arising out of their being 
situated directly in the channel of a water-side street, leading to the west 
end of the town. 
On the city side of the bridge, the approaches seem to be quite as un- 
decided as on the other ; the height of the new structure, its not coming 
opposite to any opening wide enough to give a chance for a competent 
approach, have added to the difficulties of the decision; while the 
clamours of the inhabitants of Upper Thames and Gracechurch Streets, 
and Fish Street Hill, distract and alarm the Committee, by the expres- 
sion of their fears, and the threatened amount of their claims for com- 
pensation. For our own part, while there is still the possibility of 
accomplishing it, we think that expense ought to be the secondary, and 
the greatest improvement, the first object, in the minds of the Committee. 
Nearly two centuries of regret at having, from false motives of eco- 
nomy, rejected Sir Christopher Wren’s plan for re-building the city, 
after the fire of London, ought to be a lesson to the citizens, not to 
throw away the present opportunity of a great improvement in the very 
heart of their city. We confess, we think, that all private benefit should 
give way to public good, and that a great object ought not to be.pre- — 
vented by such principles of economy as will render the improvement 
abortive. We would, with one fell sweep, get rid of as many of those — 
tortuous and winding alleys, misnamed streets, as are in the present 
neighbourhood of ‘Thames Street, and which stand in the way of some 
grand and direct communication with the new bridge ; and as it appears — 
but natural that this communication should lead to the-greatest and most 
considerable marts of commercial intercourse, we hope that plan will 
be adopted, which will give us one grand street, leading from the 
foot of the bridge immediately to the Bank and Royal Exchange. A street 
of this kind, leading from the present London Bridge to the neigh- 
bourhood of the Royal Exchange, was suggested and laid before 
the public, as long ago as 1796; and was further brought into — 
notice, as connected with the new bridge, in a letter from Dr. Price 
of Cannon Street, which appeared in the Eclipse newspaper in 1824. By 
this plan, a neighbourhood would be destroyed, which, for the tor- 
tuous and narrow streets it contains, is literally a nuisance; and a © 
cross street communicating with Fish Street Hill, would greatly 
obviate any injury that the inhabitants of that Hill and of Gracechurch 
Street might sustain, and thus diminish their claims for compensation, — 
at the same time that it lessened the inconveniences of that great 
thoroughfare. This cross street might open opposite to the Monument, 
which would then stand in a more exposed state than at present; and — 
