1840.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



311 



last, tliat. about seventy or eighty years atro, the jiopulation of these two 

 cities v;ere nearly alike. I;i population, London is now doubled, at least, and 

 she contains six or eight times as many honsas, and consumes much more 

 ground. But London lias been built at random. It is not houses they run 

 up — a good, familiar, and descriptive phrase — but n'reefs. Aye — streets. An 

 instance has been known of a street of considerable extent being built in 

 three months. It takes three years to build a house in Paris ; but then it « 

 a house — a great house — three or four times the extent of a mansion in Mer- 

 rion-square, for example. The Merrion-square house may be, and is, no 

 doubt, more comfortable, in conformity to our notions of comfort. It con- 

 tains only one family, while the great buildings I speak of gives magnificent 

 apartracTits to two or three. And do not imagine that the families which in- 

 habit these houses pay less for their houses than the gentry of Merrion-square. 

 Two, thi-ee, and even four hundred francs a year is not an uncommon rent 

 for these s-eparate families in one house. Some have been mentioned to me 

 which brings the proprietor in from .-GL.iOO to £2,000 a year. Obsen-e. that 

 I am not discuasiug which is the best mode of living — the Fi-ench or the En- 

 glish. Por my part, I should like to have a house to myself; but that is not 

 the question here. I am stating a fact with a view of showing you why it is 

 that Paris is so much superior in its buildings to London. First, they b\uld 

 in Paris greater houses ; secondly, these houses occupy a longer time in build- 

 ing ; and thirdly, they are built of materials vastly superior to those employed 

 in England. Tliey are built of a coarse marble, or of a beautiful stone, as / 

 think it is, supplied by the quarries of Normandy and the valley of the Seine 

 — the stairs in many of them are of marble— the floors, all that I have seen of 

 them, in the latter order of houses, are made of oak — the landing places, and 

 little Eute-rooms, are constructed of marble, or a Roman cement, or some su- 

 perior preparation of tile. In short, tliese houses are made to last — not for 

 one genei'ation or two, but, perhaps, for ten. When finished, there they stand 

 compact and line, and knit together, with a view of enduring for centuries. 



To build a house in Paris is a very serious thing ; the ground rent is enor- 

 mously high. Vou go to the stone quarn;' for your material, and not to the 

 brick-tield. You must employ oak instead of Canada pine. You must cm- 

 ploy stone-cutters and masons instead of bricklayers. In short, for the private 

 houses of the first class, that is to say, for houses in the first class of streets, 

 you must proceed in Paris as you would in London or Dublin if you ai'o about 

 to design a public edifice. They are built, therefore, most substantifflly, and, 

 as in public edifices, their exterior is designed on architectural princii)les, and 

 with a view to suit the r/enius loci. Now, as I have said, this system has been 

 in operation for centuries, and you can almost pronounce the age of a build- 

 ing, if you have given any previous time to the study, on inspection. Hence 

 it is that, notwitlistanding the vast number and beauty of the buildings made 

 by Napoleon, and the great addition that has been made during the present 

 improving reigu, the air of Paiis is that of an old city ; while London looks, 

 and will always look, from the material it is made of, neither new nor old, a 

 sort of Provisiotial City, a multitudmous congregation of houses, that are 

 constantly changing their aspect — that are constantly in a state of transition 

 of being run up or run down — qnadrata rotundis. But it cannot be expected 

 that on a town passing away, as it were, with the autumnal leaves, and re- 

 newed with the swallow and the zephyr, architecture can have impi*ssed her 

 permanent type. Brick, however, neatly put together, will not take the im- 

 pression. It is too perishable and fliinsy to l)ear the weight of her machinery 

 — and, indeed, it has never been tried. The bricklayers and carpenters of 

 London content themselves with erecting houses of three or four stories high, 

 with a comfortable basement for the kitchens and pantries, a hall, a front 

 parlour, and a dining-room — above, two drawing-rooms, opening into each 

 other, best beil-rooms higher up, and inferior apartments next the stairs. 

 They are all alike — like as eggs — the only difference being in the size — from 

 a sparrow's egg, or a pigeon's, to a duck or a goose's egg. In regard to the 

 apartments and their disposition, you might, after describing number one in 

 any given street of London or DubUn, write ditto against number two, and 

 ditto to the bottom of the page, and to the bottom of the next, and to the 

 end of the volume. It is curious that our ordinary builders exhibit such a 

 poverty ef contrivance — no taste, no variety, no resources, apparently, except 

 in iixiuga water-closet, or managing a projecting recess. I have httle doubt 

 that these deficiencies are attributable, in a great degree, to the materials we 

 employ, and are obliged to use, as well as from long habit, wliich has grown 

 up into a second nature. Houses are built, in London, to answer temporary 

 purposes, or for the accommodation of two, or three, or four generations. 

 They are made of brick — a perishable article — they are made of Canada deal 

 — a decaying wood. But tb.ey answer the ends of their creation. Art, science, 

 in the disposition of the interior, and considering also the size of the man- 

 sions, would be tlirown away, or rather would not have space to move about 

 in " the cribbed, cabined-in and confined" precincts of a London or Dublin 

 private house. In this city, from what I have already said, you will readily 

 infer that the case is quite diffeient. I have been in several houses since I 

 came to France, and I did not find two of them alike in their interior arrange- 

 ments. It would be, indeed, a sad puzzle to an ordinary London or Dublin 

 builder to make a house in the French fashion ; to design a house like that, 

 for instance, in which I a;u now residing — poh ! he would eat it as soon. 



But, as I have said before, a better taste is arising amongst ourselves. 

 When people shall be convinced, that even in the construction of an ordinary 

 building, it will not be amiss to employ an architect as well as a builder — 

 and, I should hope, this taste is beginning to prevail, our children, and our 

 childreus' children wUl see a finer London and a finer Dublin than we do now 



—and, / e.rpect that our country-houses— I mean the houses of our gentry— 

 if they can keep their station, which so many of them are built upon endan- 

 gering, will not be made up by a country mason and his helps — bnt, will ex- 

 hibit the common sense and understanding in which the mansions of their 

 grand-papas have been so lamentably deficient. With respect to public build- 

 ings, the prospect for our posterity is still more cheering. Our superior 

 artists are studying the Greek models with a zeal that promises excellent 

 effect. There are drawings and elevations of all the architectural remains of 

 Greece and Italy. The taste in England never died entirch-, from the time of 

 Athenian Stuart, but it shmibered in the interval deeply, until a few yeais 

 after the last war. But, t'le pure taste to be acquired from the study of these 

 immortal models has had to struggle hitherto with the so called Gothic, Nor- 

 man, and above all with that thing, now the most fashionable of all, called 

 the Tudor or Ehzabethan architecture, of which it may be asserted, tneo 

 perioulo. that it is the worst of all the rest — and only better than the poor, 

 bald, and miserable system prevailing in England since the Revolution. But, 

 Ancient Greece will conquer at last — though they are building the parliament 

 house after a model of their own. 



This is a long letter, and upon a subject which can be popular only in cer- 

 tain, perhaps, rather restricted circles. But, I am writing with the glorious 

 Madeleine looking in at my window — that most superb copy of the finest and 

 purest architectural powers of Greece. Here is a building that the eye never 

 tires in gazing upon — so sublimely-simple, so quietly beautiful, and such a 

 magidficent array of Corinthian columns. But, I am not here to describe the 

 Madeleine, any more than any other edifice. But, looking around me, and 

 with this memento constantly before my eyes, I could not resist the topics 

 which the contemplation of these objects suggested. 



ON RAILWAY AND CANAL TRAFFIC. 



By Charles Ellet, Jun., of the United States, Civil Engineer. 



[The following judicious remarks on Railway and Canal Tolls, which 

 we extract from the " Franklin Journal," are well deserving of the 

 serious attention of all parties connected with either railways or canals, 

 there will be found many hints worth their consideration.] 



The object of this essay is to point out, in a brief and popular view, the 

 consequences of some of the errors which are committed in the charges as- 

 sessed on the public works of this country. 



The wi-iter has recently pubUshed a work* in which he has attempted to 

 expose the true principles of trade, and to show the only correct mode of 

 determining the tolls proper to be levied on oar great lines of canals imd 

 railroads. But it has been suggested to him by some intelligent readers of 

 that work, that the method of analysing the subject which he has been com- 

 pelled to adopt in it, is not the best adapted to the pursuits of the class of 

 readers most likely to be interested in the subject ; and that some advantage 

 might be derived from exhiinting, in a popular form, a few of the results 

 which were there obtained by a different process. This essay is intended to 

 subsen'c that purpose ; and to show that the principles on which all the 

 tariffs in the countiy are based, are unsound, and lead, in their application, 

 to oppressive injustice to a portion of the community, and to great loss of 

 trade and revenue to the improvements. 



Of the Importance of the Subject. 



1. There arc no questions of public policy which are thought to concern 

 so intimately the general and particidar interests of the people of this country, 

 as those which relate to their internal improvements. The consideration of 

 this subject constitutes tlie greatest part of the legislation of nearly aU the 

 states in the Union, and the employment of the privileges sanctioned by the 

 law, constitutes a prominent portion of the efforts of individual enterprise. 

 There are now completed and in use in the coimtry more than three thousand 

 miles of railroads, and not less than three thousand miles of canals, the con- 

 struction of which has occasioned an actual expenditure of probably 

 150,000,000 dollars, and for which loans have been incurred by the state 

 governments or incorporated companies, to nearly an equal amount. 



This enormous investment of capital is by some viewed as alarming ; and 

 might, indeed, appear so, when it is considered that a draft of some eight 

 millions of dollars will be annually made on the country for the payment of 

 the interest on this sum, and that the principal itself, in the brief space of 

 twenty years, may possibly have to be refunded. On the other hand, there 

 are sanguine advocates of improvements, who look to the revenue to be de- 

 rived from the works themselves, consequent on the rapid growth and pro- 

 gressively increasing productiveness of the coimtry, as offering an ample 

 guarantee for the prompt payment of the interest, and the due liquidation o{ 

 the principal, of the debt. 



It is not the intention now to discuss this momentous question, or to en- 

 deavour to ascertain which of these hypotheses approaches nearest the truth. 

 Both are but surmises, advanced as the result of a hasty glance at the facts, 

 or possibly based on no safer evidence than the prepossessions, or mere con- 

 jectures, of the parties. They are wanting in that detail, that exhibition of 



• "An Essay on the Laws of Trade in reference to the works of Pubile 

 Improvement in the United States. 



2 T 2 



