606 Metropolitan Improvements : ‘[Dec. 
adequate employment for it, projects were presented daily, if not hourly, 
in the city, for both of these purposes. Seme of these were highly 
laudable, and gave activity to thousands ; while many, on the contrary, 
were suggested in fraud, for foreign purposes, and produced great dis- 
tress and ruin.” 
Just at this period Mr. Williams, who had procured a patent for his 
sub-ways, proposed to sell the license for the use of this patent in 
the different districts of the metropolis, and accordingly advertised the 
particulars of the sale, which was intended to have taken place, by pub- 
lic auction, at Garraway’s, on February 10th, 1825. The scheme of this 
sale does certainly appear to us a little Utopian; for we here find a pri- 
vate projector dividing, allotting, and selling, the different districts, like 
a potential monarch. He does not, however, attribute the failure of the 
sale to any deficiency in the plan itself. «“ At the period of-the sale,” 
says he, “numerous endeavours were made among the brokers, and 
others, at the Stock Exchange, to bring forward sub-ways with the view 
of speculating in the shares; but the object having nothing speculative 
in it, they could not succeed.” A little farther he adds, “The immense 
quantity of these projects soon overwhelmed sub-ways. They were lost, 
and literally buried under a mass of evanescent matter, which, when 
cleared away at some future period, after the fever of speculative 
intoxication shall have subsided, will again appear like a mine of gold, 
for sober and enlightened construction.” Such was the end of the pro- 
ject as it was then brought forward ; and we feel very much inclined to 
agree with Mr. Williams, that the great cause of the failure of a plan, 
pregnant with such general utility, if properly and efficiently carried 
into effect, arose, perhaps, more from the circumstances of the times, 
than from any radical defect in the proposition. 
The nuisance, both private and public, of the present system must be 
too generally acknowledged, not to admit of the utility of some such 
project, and were its tendency to preserve the pavement of our streets, 
the only use to be derived from it, it would have our most hearty con- 
currence, and as large a subscription as our pockets could afford. That 
our pavement in itself is very frequently bad, there is no doubt; but a 
contractor has no chance, when his street is monthly, nay, weekly, liable 
to be disturbed by those autocrats of filth, the Commissioners of Sewers. 
The continual repairs that are necessary, and the frequent excavations that’ 
are made for this purpose, leaves the pavior nothing but hastily made 
ground, very frequently of soft materiel, to bed his granite upon ; and 
this is one main reason for a defective state of the pavement, which ren= 
ders it not only a nuisance, but, in many instances, absolutely dangerous. 
This subject has occupied the attention of many scientific men, while 
parochial and other authorities, constituted for the formation and repairs 
of streets, have made experiment after experiment, and have found the 
one only more successless than the last. Our streets are either clouded 
with dust, or inundated with mud, while, at every step our horses take, 
the unfortunate carriage perambulator runs the risk of dislocation, and’ 
the coach-makers are the only persons benefitted by the miscarriage of 
our road-makers. 
Upon this subject Mr. Bryan Donkin read a paper before the Society 
of Civil Engineers, in 1824, and Mr. William Deykes published some 
“ Considerations on the Defective State of the Pavement of the Metro- 
polis,” in the same year. 
