1828.] British Sub-ways. 605 
private property to be interfered with—the foundations of so many 
buildings to be endangered, and such a general turning i our pave- 
ment, that the undertaking appeared too extensive, and the project fell 
to the ground. As a memento, however, of his plan, Mr. Williams has 
published an octavo history of his exertions, which do great credit to his 
industry, talent, and perseverance, and which may one day form(data 
for a more successful attempt. The object of this volume being to pro- 
vide a remedy for the inconvenience the public suffer from breaking up 
of streets, &c., and to suggest various plans for the improvement of 
public works connected with our sewage, and the service of water and 
gas. Mr. Williams says, “ That it is respectfully submitted, not as a 
work calculated for criticism—not as claiming any merit for classical 
composition, or literary research, but as a plain tale, by a plain man, 
amusing himself in a little leisure from his accustomed labours, in search 
of increased comforts.” 
It is rather remarkable that as the ancients scarcely ever erected a city 
without sub-ways, that the moderns, who have imitated them in so many 
things of lesser moment, should have neglected their example in such an 
important point. It is not a great many years ago that Holborn was 
nearly one general stream of water and mud, from the want of drainage ; 
while, at the same period, a journey from Charing Cross to Temple Bar, 
in wet weather, was a source of peril from the same deficiency. The 
ancients, in erecting their sub-ways, built them certainly upon a more 
magnificent scale than modern means might have permitted ; yet they 
might have been judiciously imitated upon a smaller scale. In many 
instances these sub-ways of the ancients, as at Rome, remain a model of 
their wisdom in their municipal regulations, and are still an object of 
curiosity and interest to the scientific traveller. Mr. Williams’s project 
was to remedy this grand defect in our metropolis, and to erect dry tun- 
nels, forming habitations for the water and gas-pipes, and having 
communications with the sewers beneath, so as to resemble the CLoaca 
Maxima, or great water-way of imperial Rome. 
Warm in his project, and sanguine in his hopes of its.success, Mr. 
Williams issued prospectus after prospectus—summoned a public meet- 
ing, and procured introductions to the members of his Majesty’s govern- 
ment. His plan met the approbation of the scientific ; architects landed 
the sub-ways to the skies; his majesty’s ministers acknowledged the 
public benefit of the scheme, and “ Recommended the formation of a pub- 
lic company to carry it into effect.””. This was, in our opinion, a genteel 
way of getting rid of the question; as a theatrical manager dismisses a 
candidate for histrionic fame; with high encomiums on his talent, and a 
recommendation to try it in the country. 
In consequence of this recommendation, another meeting was sum- 
moned, at the City of London Tavern, when the Lonpon Sus-way 
Company was resolved to be formed, under the auspices of Alderman 
Garratt, who presided as chairman—an odd name, by-the-by, to have 
been president on such an occasion ;—but this resolution, unfortunately 
for the project, was never subsequently acted upon, and the project fell 
to the ground. 
To account for this “ suspension,” as Mr. Williams terms it, of his pro- 
ject, he subsequently states that “ A remarkable period in British his- 
tory, commenced some time after the sub-ways came forward. In con- 
sequence of the abundance of capital in the kingdom, and the want of 
