1844.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



J71 



amount, while the proportionate decrease is verv great. People are 

 gradually getting used to travel, the circle continually widening, and 

 as they get used to it, it becomes a necessary of life. They can no 

 more do without it, than they can forego their )irovisions. But they 

 must be inoculated to it, and this inoculation will not take place while 

 they are frightened by high fares. We are of opinion that it would 

 be a wise thing for Railway Companies to establish some rule in 

 lowering their tares in proportion to the increase of their passengers. 

 It is the largest number that will pay best, in all cases, and we appre- 

 hend that the lowest fares will also pay best, unless where the number 

 of passengers is limited." The author before us certainly does not 

 go far enough for us in his proposed legislation, for he is content to 

 have open third class carriages at |d. per mile attached to all trains. 

 Now we think as a matter of public healtli it is desirable that all 

 trains slionld be covered as in Belgium, and that sntFicient distinction 

 in comfort will always exist between the several classes of carriages. 

 Third class carriages should be provided with seats, covered with 

 tarpaulin, and have curtains; and second class carriages be first class 

 carriages without the cushions. In practice thi» arrangement has 

 worked well, and will work well. On short omnibus lines, however, 

 open stand-up carriages do no harm. On all lines a step remains to 

 be taken, which may be pursued with advantage, we mean the run- 

 ning of slow, cheap trains, going at the rale of some ten miles an 

 hour. Such trains can be worked much cheaper tlian high speed 

 trains, and there are large classes of the public to whom time is of 

 less importance than money, females in particular. All these things, 

 however, may be safely left to experience, and experience is beginning 

 to show that a high fare is the wrong system for extracting the 

 greatest revenue from a railwav. The cheap fare system is satisfac- 

 torily progressing, and will establish itself without legislative aid. 

 A great many experiments are also being made as to excursions, 

 return tickets, weekly, monthly, season and yearly subscriptions, the 

 results of which are promulgated by the railway press to the general 

 information. Here, too, we may observe, that it is not one of the 

 least remarkable features of the railway system, that it has created a 

 press, by the competition and energv of the members of which a de- 

 gree of information is diffused which has been productive of the 

 greatest benefits, and which under no central administration could 

 exist. By the means of this agency upwards of a hundred reports of 

 directors and engineers are vearly brought under the scrutiny of the 

 great body of railway capitalists, while the comments of the share- 

 holders at the meetings are recorded at a length, and with a de- 

 gree of accuracy only surpassed by the reports of the Houses of 

 Parliament. This is totally independent of the weekly communica- 

 tion of every kind of intelligence, and the keen investigation of a 

 number of editors experienced on the subject, and solely engaged in 

 such discussions. Indeed it is not one of the smallest marvels of the 

 railway system to see one of these papers with more than thirty of 

 our pages of close type recording the minutest details of railway 

 management, and the most trivial observations of the humblest share- 

 bolder or official, for the perusal of many hundred railway directors, 

 secretaries, engineers and functionaries. The loss of such auxiliaries 

 consequent on the centralization of the railways by government, woidd 

 deprive us of an engine of improvement which no other machinery 

 could supply, even supposing the government to be willing at its own 

 risk to keep up for the benefit of its functionaries a Railioay Journal, 

 Railway Rtcurd, for even if it found the money it could not find 

 the materials. Seeing the influence which this press has in the dif- 

 fusion of intelligence and the propagation of truth, we are quite 

 satisfied that the directors still holding out against low fares will not 

 be for long. 



The grand remedy, however, we think lies in improving the ar- 

 rangements for obtaining Acts of Parliament. This our author has 

 also turned his attention to, but we think he has not struck at the root 

 of tlie evil. In common with many other individuals he has the cus- 

 tomary horror of projectors and share jobbers, and for the sake of re- 

 medying any evil connected with share jobbing, he is willing to sacri- 

 fice , the interests of the community. We say give every tacility for 

 obtaining acts of parliament for railways, harl)ours, docks, bridges, 

 and all useful works, take no trouble about whether the work will pay, 

 or whether the parties have money to carry it on, leave the^m to look 

 after that themselves, and do not for the fear of encouraging share 

 jobbing prevent people from carrying out useful works. Let such 

 parties also have the power of raising as much money as they can 

 upon the works, and let the parties lending the money look to their 

 own investigations for the security and not to the legislature. We 

 know these are views diametrically opposed to the prevailing prac- 

 tice, but let them be canvassed and they will be found to be right. 

 Depend upon it, the more trade is left to regulate itself, and the more 

 it is carried on by private enterprise, the better. The public is very 



well able to protect itself, and to form its own judgment as to the ad- 

 visability of an investment without any legislative aid on the score, 

 which after all is totally erroneous — for have not many of the lines 

 guaranteed by parliament to pay five per cent , been for years without 

 a dividend, and others on the contrary surpassed all parliamentary calcu- 

 lations. As to the bubble companies, we have no fear on that head; 

 West Middlesex swindlers may exist as they have existed, but a whole 

 community is not to be fettered to prevent the perpetration of crime. 

 Give every facility for obtaining railway bills, relax the standing 

 orders, do away with all deposits, and you need entertain no fears 

 about existing lines charging high fares. Here, too, we may observe 

 that nothing ccnld be more absurd than the doctrine lately held in the 

 legislature that no new line should be authorised to compete with an 

 existing railway, for the more railways the better for the public at 

 large. The idea, too, of the vested interest of a railway in the traffic 

 between particular towns is supremely ridiculous, for it is evident 

 that it did not regard the vested interest of the turnpike road it 

 superseded. No one can have a vested interest in abuse, and it is an 

 abuse to subject the public to a high rate for travelling, when they can 

 be carried more cheaply. 



The suggestions of the author, that the 5 per cent, government tax 

 on lailways might be appropriated as a tax for buying them up, is an 

 exceedingly good one, and we think such a fund might be advan- 

 tageously applied in the gradual purchase of shares at the market 

 value without involving any great interference with the grand prin- 

 ciple of private enterprise, for after all, what we have to look to is not 

 what we shall do with the present railways, but how we shall keep up 

 the national energy, liy which such great works have been prosecuted 

 and by which still greater things can be effected in our own country, 

 and in our vast colonial empire. 



Rieerche iuW Archlklura phi propria dei Tempi Crisliani, e Appli- 

 cazione della medisstma ad una idea di Sostilazione dtlla Chiesa 

 Calkdrale di S. Gwranni in Torino. Del Cavaliere LuiGi Canina. 

 Roma, 1843, gr. folio, con 58 Tavola. 



'LuiGi' seems to be a baptismal name of good omen for architects» 

 it being that of three of the most eminent modern Italian ones, Cagnola, 

 Canonica, (very recently deceased), and Canina. The last has con- 

 tributed largely to the literature and history of architecture, first by 

 his " Architettura Antica," (1832, &c.,) and now by this second 

 splendid folio work, whose full title we have given above. While the 

 work itself deserves the epithet magnificent, there is something even 

 princely — not at all likely te be imitated in this country — in the mode 

 in which it is given to the world ; the term " given" being to be un- 

 derstood literally, since all the copies are for private donations and 

 presents. That there should be none at all for sale, is, however, to 

 be regretted; still the bringing out so costly a work — all the more 

 costly in proportion as the impression is a limited one, contrasts more 

 strikingly than flatteringly with the niggardly trading-like doings in 

 this country on the part of opulent professors and patrons of art. In- 

 stead of presenting his medals and coins either to the British Museum 

 or to one of the Universities, to be there deposited as the Devonshire 

 Collection, one of the wealthiest of our English Dukes, sends them to 

 an auctioneer's sale-room, — perhaps because he has found a royal 

 visit to be a very expensive sort of honour. — This, however, is an 

 apart, which the reader is not obliged to notice. 



In regard to this new work of Canina's, we are sorry to be obliged 

 to confess that we cannot speak of it from perusal or autopsy, but can 

 report of it only according to what is said by a foreign journalist, who 

 has had an opportunity of inspecting a copy deposited in the Univer- 

 sity Library at Leipzig. Had we ourselves been able to obtain a sight 

 of it, we should most assuredly have made a somewhat different use 

 of the opportunity, for we should have paid especial attention to the 

 Canina's own designs for a new Cathedral, which, it seems, it is in 

 contemplation to erect at Turin, in the immediate vicinity of the 

 Royal Palace, in lieu of the present old one of San Giovanni ; which 

 is all the information the journalist affords us on the subject, since he 

 does not even so mnch as say if these designs are a mere volunteer 

 j'roji't on ihe part of the architect, or were prepared in consequence 

 of an intimation that his ideas would be acceptable. As to what they 

 really are, we are left entirely in the dark, not a single particular of 

 any kind, relative to them, being stated in the journal we speak after; 

 — nothing even to convey so much as some general idea; not even a 

 syllable expressive of either approbation of, or dissatisfaction at, this 

 attempt to revive the Basilica style, or that of the early Ecclesiastical 

 Architecture of Italy, in a modified form, so as to adapt it for churches 



13* 



