1849.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



333 



Joshua's empirical flourishes of the compasses, to find out where a 

 woman's breasts ought to be placed. 



This would be a bad look-out enough ; but besides applying his 

 system to plum-puddings and the human face divine, Mr Hay has 

 adapted it to the Parthenon and the Pantheon, and opened a royal 

 road to architecture. It is under these circumstances we recom- 

 mend Mr. Purdie's little work to our readers — first, because we think 

 he ought to be encouraged for writing on architectural art, when 

 so few are inclined to do so; but most because he lias taken up a 

 question which architects have very little considered, and are very 

 little in the habit of considering — what is the foundation of beauty 

 in art? Incidentally, Vitruvius comes under discussion, and stu- 

 dents may read with some degree of interest Mr. Purdie's com- 

 mentary on his text. 



We sliould have liked well enough to have followed Mr. Purdie 

 at some length, but our readers are not in the habit of pursuing 

 metaphysical disquisitions, and would thank us little for our pains. 

 We are' obliged, therefore, to refer those zealous in these matters 

 to Mr. Purdie himself. We must, however, give one caution — 

 tliat Mr. Purdie seems to labour under rather warm feelings 

 against Mr. Hay, and with the wish to arm himself with a to- 

 mahawk instead of a quill. 



In concluding these remarks in deprecation of the "elementa- 

 tion" of form, we cannot help expressing our belief that a study of 

 the laws of proportion, properly conducted, would lead to results 

 very valuable to the practitioners of art. 



THE SEWERS COMMISSION. 



Our Journal is not so considerable, that we can claim for it the 

 power of influencing the opinions of the public at large, or the 

 decisions of a cabinet; but we may safely pride ourselves on pos- 

 sessing the confidence of the leading members of two intelligent 

 professions, and thereby the means of taking some considerable 

 part in the discussion of measures affecting tlieir interests. Of 

 ourselves we could do little, but in stimulating the professions 

 watclifully to uphold their intei-ests, we have set machinery in 

 motion wliich has worked out a great result. All parties joined in 

 decrying the old Commission of Sewers; its evil working could 

 readily be seen, but all were not agreed as to tlie want to be set 

 right. The old Commission has been swept away; but in setting- 

 up a new one, the ministry has made a show of remedying that 

 evil on which the professional interest and their organ were most 

 urgent in their denunciations. 



The old Commission wanted men of working knowledge and 

 skill: they wasted their time in undertakings beyond their grasp, 

 — and they did nothing, inasmucfi as they did not grapple with the 

 crying evils before them. Tlie old Commission is dead, — ^^Anno 

 tetatis sua;" may be written on its tomb: it may be set down how 

 long it lasted, but there can be no words to show what it did. 

 When death was stalking over the land, and tlie readiest help was 

 wanted to stay it, the Commission, before tliey did anything, un- 

 dertook a survey. When engineers and surveyors were to be had 

 in numbers, and were, in good truth, starving for want of work, 

 the Commission gave the Survey away to the soldiers, who ought 

 to have been at work on the Ordnance Survey, — and to this day 

 tlie corporals and privates have not sent in tlie survey. For the 

 plans sent in for a general sewage, there was no Sewers Map, and 

 the profession owe the one they had from the Commissioners to the 

 private enterprise of Mr. Wyld, M.P., the geographer, who pub- 

 lished his own survey, and compelled the Commissioners of Sewers 

 to give him the levels. 



'I'he same mood has swa5'ed throughout. The soaring mind of 

 Mr. Chadwick was to give us lasting springs of healtli, so that 

 London should never again sicken. What lias been done .'' — The 

 needful works have been stayed, and some paltry cleansing under- 

 taken; and so far from the common health having been bettered, 

 the common health has been hurt by the mistaken doings of the 

 Commission. In the height of the cholera, they flushed sewers 

 and emptied cesspools — thereby blasting the air by niglit and by 

 day; and they poured into the Thames such a reeking flood of 

 filth, as to make the river hurtful to those who travelled on it for 

 health or for business, or who drank its polluted waters. 



The Commissioners talked a great deal upon the subject of the 

 wasted sewage, and of what they meant to do on that head: but 

 all they did was to make trials of sewer-water, — whereas sewer- 

 water is worth so little, that it cannot be borne beyond the neigh- 

 bourhood of London; is only fit for grass-land; and as it cannot 

 be laid on at aU times of the year, must there'ore be wasted or 



long-stored — thereby again raising the outlay.* Besides, if it be 

 used for watering and manuring grass-lands in the vicinity of large 

 towns, the evaporation would cause the atmosphere to be tainted, 

 and infect the inhabitants with fever and all the attendant mala- 

 dies of malaria. 



On the old Commission there was no engineer, architect, or sur- 

 veyor, though there were some royal engineers. Thus, the Com- 

 mission wag without working men, and thus slur was cast on the 

 professions, on the pretence that their members might have an 

 interest in the works. The true meaning was to thrust away men 

 who would not be the followers or tools of Mr. Chadwick, and who 

 might open their minds fairly and freely. Thus was a crying evil 

 made, and it behoved the professions to clear themselves of the 

 stigma which Mr. Chadwick attempted to cast on their value in the 

 business of the Commission, and again on their skill in that of the 

 Survey. 



The ministry have sent the old Commissioners adrift, and have 

 named new ones, and in so doing have called in Robert Stephenson, 

 M.P., Philip Hardwick, Rendel, and Peto. So far as this is an 

 acknowledgment of the wrong that has been done, and so far as it 

 is acknowledgment of the rights of the professions, it is to be 

 praised. Jlen of higher standing and of better feelings than those 

 named, cannot be found; and so far as it rests with them, we have 

 every ground for trust: but we warn the professions not to give 

 way — to be wary and watcliful— for the old leaven is still at work. 

 As if for fear of the mischief to jobbing, which a few high-minded 

 men might do if left to themselves, the civilians are muzzled by 

 having several royal engineers set against them. What royal en- 

 gineers have to do on the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers we 

 cannot understand. Every opening in the Sewers Commission 

 belongs as rightfully to the professions, as the Lunacy Commission 

 does to the medical'men, and the Law Commissions to the lawyers. 

 This Commission is among the few public employments which the 

 engineers have, and there can be no right in making it partake of 

 the appearance of a military commission, which it now does by the 

 number of Royal Engineers in the Commission. 



AV'e maintain that if eight professional men are to be on the 

 Commission, they ought to be all civilians; and on all hands we 

 think it unfair the civil engineers or architects should be over- 

 borne by a greater number of the military engineers, who have 

 less weight and less standing as a profession. If the whole eight 

 were taken from among the civilians, an evil would be stopped 

 which has now arisen. The civilians now named are of that high 

 standing, they cannot readily give their time to the working of the 

 Commission— they are so busy it is not worth their while: they can 

 only give tlieir time to such business as is of greater weight. Not 

 so with the military engineers, they can always be there; and it is, 

 therefore, only a sham to talk of the new Commission being in the 

 hands of working men. It is well enough that the civilians now 

 named are goxernment employe's, and the fellows of Mr. Cliadwick 

 on tlie Board of Health; but having done the professions the 

 honour of naming some of their head men, the other four may 

 now be taken from men of less standing, but having the time to 

 do the daily and weekly work of the Commission. 



It does liot seem to us by any means settled that Chadwickisni 

 is at an end in the new Commission, although Mr. Chadwiek's 

 nariie is not in it. The civilians cannot very well trouble him, as 

 they are likely to be everywhere but at the Sewers Office; indeed, 

 at St. Stephen's, the Britannia Bridge, Birkenhead, or Great 

 Grimsby, or in any canal in Eui-ope where their skill is wanted. 

 The military engineers will be at their posts. The AVoods and 

 Forests and the Board of Health are always at hand to meddle, 

 and Lord Carlisle and Mr. Chadwick will have the sway without 

 bearing the brunt. 



Above all things, the professions must not forget that, Com- 

 mission or no Commission, their work is not at an end. To lay 

 down sewage for the world of London, to heal the blighted streams, 

 to bring in fresh water and fresh air, to supply the husbandman 

 with the needful food of culture, — these are works which must be 

 wrought out by our professional men. It is a new field for work 

 which Is opened to them; and they must not lean on the Commis- 

 sioners, but woi-k liard themselves. Formerly, our path was a 

 straight one; we were going on slowly and steadily in it, but the 

 Sewers Commission has upset everything, — and it is needful to 

 provide not only for the wants of' the metropolis, but to remedy 

 the errors they have committed, and the evils they have cr eated. 



• ' Native Guano, tlie best Antidote anainst tlie Fatal Effects of Free Trade in Corn.' 

 ByGEOKGE BURGES, M.A. London: Effingham Wilson, 1»48. 



' Native Guano versus Server Water." By SCAVENGER. London : Sherwood, lS4i). 



