60 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[February, 



their unexampled hardihood and practical science, though the remarks on 

 their principles of structure and of art, which the future lectures will have 

 occasion to otter, will show that neither the geometrician nor the scientific 

 architect need regret the impenetrable veil which conceals them. Any de- 

 tailed discussion of the merits of the plans exhibited would lead beyond the 

 bounds prescribed ; but we must admit that, generally, the continental plans 

 exceed our own in magnificence of design, especially in the double ailes and 

 the western fronts. To what causes may be assigned the more modest de- 

 sign of our own churches, except to that characteristic prudence of our 

 countrymen, which requires the full accomplishment of ever}' enterprise 

 undertaken, it may not be easy to determine ; certain it is, that all the 

 churches of this country are complete in their design aud features, whereas 

 those of the continent are very rarely so. 



The words of our poet, though not always applicable to architects, unhap- 

 pily, may be so to our pastors and masters. 



When we mean to build, we first survey the plot, 

 Then draw the model : which if we find exceeds ability, 

 What do we then, but draw anew the model in fewer offices. 



Consult surveyors, know our own estate, 



How able such a work to undergo. 



Or else we build like those, who half thro' give o'er, 



And leave their part created cost 



A naked subject to the watery clouds, 



And waste for churlish Winter's tyranny. 



With reference to the gradual verticality which the sections of this series 

 of ancient and modern temples assumed, we might say, that the earliest were 

 of the earth earthy, and the latter as sublime as the religion for which they 

 were designed. Thus, the height of the Pantheon, at Rome, was equal to its 

 diameter, or as 10 to 10 ; that of Venus, and Rome, was as 12A to 10 ; that 

 of the Baths of Caracalla, as 14 to 10; of St. Peter's, at Rome,~as 17 to 10; 

 of St. Paul's, London, 20 to 10, as also of Lincoln ; and that of Cologne was 

 as 34 to 10. 



The last great temple of Christendom, was the Magdalene Church at Paris ; 

 it is 325 feet long by 136 feet wide and 120 feet high, and equalled the 

 smaller temple at Balbec. It was the work of more than half a century. 

 In England, great activity had been used in church-building during the last 

 twenty-five years, but the warmest admirers of those zealous efforts could 

 never pretend that any regulated architectural spirit has directed those 

 works. No church of a monumental character had been attempted. The 

 ascendancy of the high church party is, however, favourable to our art, and 

 it is not unlikely, that under good direction, it may flourish in a few years. 

 But there is much pedantry abroad, and an absence of all originality aud 

 intrinsic character in the taste of the day, which leans to the Roman Catholic 

 form, the basilica, suited to a demonstrative form of worship, rather than the 

 auditorium required by our ritual. Veneration for antiquity is to be respected 

 and encouraged, but its transition to superstition is easy. The divines of 

 10S0 have left us models, erected under the direction of Sir C. Wren, which 

 have not been surpassed. Seven of the city churches were exhibited (mea- 

 sured by the Professor), which would be found as remarkable for their 

 adaptation to our form of worship — offering the largest area, with the 

 smallest obstruction to the sight and hearing, — as they were ingenious and 

 admirable in taste and structure. 



The favourite design of Sir C. Wren (laid down from the model now in 

 St. Paul's,) was also exhibited. It was a precious legacy to posterity, which 

 had never been surpassed in architectural beauty and arrangement, for the 

 Anglo-Protestant Cathedral church, and would probably at some future time 

 be executed. 



But attachment to our national architecture may be indulged with great 

 propriety by the adoption of the forms of the Lady Chapels, modified and 

 suited to our ritual — as those of Wells, Ely, and others; or of the chapter, 

 houses; and the Greek church. The basilica form requires length rinsuited 

 to our services, and the fragments or curtailed portions of that form, often 

 practised with small success in our recent churches, seems to point at the 

 greater advantage of the vertical arrangement, which the models, the Pro- 

 fessor ventured to suggest, in the churches of Wren, and the examples 

 quoted, would assure to us. 



THE METROPOLITAN PAVING ACT. 



Ax important case came before Mr. Hardwick at the Marlborough Police 

 Office, on the 24th of December last, arising out of a dispute between the 

 Equitable Gas Company and the Commissioners of Paving for the parish of 

 St. James's, Westminster, as to whether the Equitable Gas Company had or 

 had not the right of breaking up the street and afterwards lav down a service 

 pipe " without the consent of the Paving Board." After hearing both 

 parties, the Magistrate adjourned the case for consideration until Thursday, 

 January 5th, when it was again heard for final adjudication. 



Mr. Smith, solicitor, attended on behalf of the Paving Commissioners, 

 and Mr. Clarkson, the barrister, for the Equitable Gas Company. 



Mr. Hardwick read the following as his opinion :— This is a complaint bv 

 the Board of Pavements, in the Parish of St. James, against the Equitable 

 Gas light Company, for breaking and taking up the pavement in their juris- 

 diction for the purpose of laying down a new pipe without the consent of 



the board. The answer of the Gas Company is, that it being a service pipe 

 and not a main pipe, a notice only and not the consent of the board is re- 

 quired. The clauses which gave rise to the disputed point are in the 11th 

 section of the 57th George III, cap. 29. Abridged they stand thus — "No 

 water or gas light company shall break or take up the pavement in any street 

 for the purpose of laying down any main or mains of pipes, unless notice in 

 writing be given to the surveyor of pavements three days previous to such 

 breaking up," &c. So far water and gas companies are placed upon the 

 same footing ; but in the next clause a further restriction is imposed on gas 

 companies. By it no gas company can take or break up any pavement for 

 the purpose of laying down any new mains or pipes without the consent in 

 writing of the Board of Pavement. When my attention was first called to 

 this clause, my impression was, that being, as it then seemed to me, in the 

 disjunctive, the word "pipes" must be taken to include pipes of every 

 description, and that the Board of Pavement was right in their view of the 

 case. But on a more attentive perusal of this section, and especially of the 

 following one, that impression has been much removed ; and I am now in- 

 clined to think that the perplexity in this matter has arisen from an ambi- 

 guous use of terms, from using different expressions to signify one and the 

 same thing; for example: — In the beginning of the 12th section, which di- 

 rects of what materials mains should be, the language there used is worthy 

 of observation. " That all new or complete mains, or pipes laid down in any 

 street by any water or gas company, whether such new or complete main of 

 pipes shall or shall not be substituted for, or added to, any other complete 

 main or mains of pipes, shall be of iron alone." Here in these few lines we 

 have three different expressions — mains, or pipes, main of pipes, and main 

 or mains of pipes, all signifying one and the same thing — the main pipe. In 

 the next clause separate and distinct mention is made of service-pipes, which 

 may be either of iron or lead, or other durable material ; from which I am 

 induced to infer that, possibly, " or " is a typographical error for " of," or at 

 any rate it is to be taken in a disjunctive sense, but, as it is frequently used, 

 expressing an alternative of terms, a definition or explanation of the same 

 thing in different words. Thus " main " being purely a technical word of 

 the most comprehensive signification, the terms "pipes" and "mains of 

 pipes" have been added and used as an alternative term to give it a clearer 

 and more definite meaning for the purposes of this act, and therefore the 

 expression " mains or pipes," in the clause under discussion, may not un- 

 fairly be read as synonymous with " mains of pipes," or pipes forming the 

 main. If this should be the right view of the case, the complaint must be 

 dismissed ; as the pipe in question laid down is a service, not a main pipe, 

 it requires notice only, not the consent of the board. 



Mr. Smith argued that the 11th section of the act of Parliament related 

 both to main and service pipes, whether they were for gas or water com- 

 panies. 



Mr. Hardwick said this question only applied to mains. 

 After a long discussion, Mr. Hardwick said he still adhered to the con- 

 clusion he had just read. 



Mr. Smith observed, that unless there was a conviction before the magis- 

 trate, he had no power of appeal. 



Mr. Hardwick said the proper court of tribunal was the Court of Queen's 

 Bench. 



Mr. Clarkson had waited very patiently while this discussion was going 

 on. He was, however, very much surprised to hear [that Mr. Smith had 

 displayed so much ignorance with relation to the decision of those whom he 

 (Mr. Clarkson) was proud to call his learned friends — viz., the present At- 

 torney-General (Sir F. Pollock), or former Attorney-General (Lord Camp- 

 bell), Mr. Adolphus, and another learned friend, all of whom had given 

 opinions quite contrary to that which Mr. Smith now stood upon. He con- 

 tended that the mains having been laid down at the house of any person 

 applying, common law and common seuse gave him the power, which the 

 law of England gave every man, of having his own subsoil opened. He did 

 not know whether it was, as the worthy magistrate had observed, a typo- 

 graphical mistake in the act of Parliament in substituting " or " for " of," or 

 one of those tinkerings which he had so frequently observed in the ma- 

 chinery of acts of Parliament, but he must say the act was most defective. 

 It was wind without sense ; sometimes the word " mains " was used, and 

 sometimes "pipes;" they were " ejusdem generis." What a state of things 

 it would be, if a collector was to come to a person who wished his gas to be 

 laid on in the front of his house, and say he did not like his look ; or, if 

 another was to be asked to lay on the water, to say he did not admire his 

 politics. Would such proceedings be tolerated ? He was certain not. The 

 tenant, the drains having been laid down, had a right to open the subsoil, 

 and in his opinion he was fortified by the opinions of the eminent legal au- 

 thorities he had mentioned. A similar case had been argued before Mr. 

 Long by himself and bis learned friend Mr. Bodkin, and the learned magis- 

 trate had, in that case, decided, notwithstanding all his learned friend's ar- 

 guments, against him and the parochial commissioner. 



A discussion was here raised between Messrs. Clarkson and Smith, as to 

 whether or not notice had been given on the 11th of May by one of the 

 inspectors of the gas company of his intention to open the street; Mr. 

 Clarkson denied that such notice had ever been given. 



Mr. Hardwick considered that, by the arguments which had been brought 

 before him, and also by his own previously written opinion, the gas company 

 were authorized to open the ground for service-pipes : the complaint was 

 therefore dismissed. 



