THE BLACKFRIARS DROWNINGS.
A NUMBER of lives have been lost by the breaking of a pier at Blackfriars Bridge. Though the pier was perhaps over-crowded, the number of persons was not greater than might be collected at any time, in a situation so centrical, of persons landing from and going on board a steam-boat, with friends waiting to receive them
or see them depart. The pier had been condemned two years ago by the Navigation Committee, and the condemnation reported to the Lord Mayor, the head of the Thames Conservancy Court. The pier was placed in the very vortex of an eddy, formed by the rushing of the stream through the arches of the bridge and the alternate flow and ebb of the tide. This is a situation in which the decomposition of wood is naturally accelerated, and to which great part of the filth and garbage collected by the river, the great sewer of the Metropolis above bridge, is carried and deposited; forming a kind of slough or quicksand, which increases the danger of persons falling into the river there.
A more gross and shameless neglect of duty on the part of the Court of Conservancy than has been brought to light by this fatal accident can scarcely-be conceived. It is agreed on all hands that the power of the Court over all erections on the river, and over all persons carrying on traffic on the river, is adequate to the pro- tection of the public. That the public need to be protected from the recklessness of the cupidity of private speculation, if it required proof, would receive it from the erection of a pier in so dangerous a place, from the frailty of the first erection, and from the dangerous condition in which it has been allowed to remain. The Corporation of London, in which is vested the conservancy of the Thames, has been for two years aware of the state of the pier, and aware that it was an illegal pier—erected in contravention of the Blackfriars Bridge Act ; and yet not a single step has been taken by the Corporation, during these two years, to prevent the occurrence of what, now that it has happened, men only wonder that it did not happen long before. In what temper do the magnates of the Corporation receive this disclosure of their incompetency ? With imperturbable effrontery and selfish vanity. Their first fear is that advantage may be taken of the accident to deprive them of a power which they prize as ministering to their consequence, but which they wantonly neglected to exercise for the public safety. On Tuesday, Mr. ANDERTON ex- claims—" My apprehension is, that if we do not take some effec- tive course, Government will save us the trouble, by taking the power into their own hands." On Wednesday, Sir PETER LAURIE echoed the apprehension ; and, unabashed by so many deaths lying at the door of himself and his colleagues, proceeded to expatiate on the encroaching ambition of the Secretary of State. There are few who would at this moment regret to see the daws of the Common Council stripped of their peacock's plumes, could any more trustworthy depository of the important power they have neglected to exercise be suggested. But there certainly exists no desire to see the conservancy of the Thames transferred to a Se- cretary of State, or a board under him. The apprehensions of the Corporation that their misused power may be taken from them, will make them active and useful for some months to come ; while no such apprehension could ever disturb the repose of a Govern- ment-office.
But some alteration in the constitution of the Court of Con- servancy is imperatively called for. The recriminations and apo- logies of the members of the Court of Common Council show the disorganized and inefficient state of that body. The Navigation Committee washes its hands of the accident, because in 1842 it condemned the pier, and intimated as much to the Lord Mayor for the time being. The present Lord Mayor washes his hands of it, because the intimation was made not to himself but to a prede- cessor in office. And when the Ex-Mayor comes to be heard, doubtless he will plead that the intimation was made near the expiry of his term of office ; and that as the Lord Mayor (like the King) never dies, it was the abstract idea of the Lord Mayor, not the individual man, who received the intimation, and ought to have attended to it in reasonable time. There has been also a little by- play between the Bridge Estates Committee and the Navigation Committee. From all this talk it is quite apparent, that, at least in so far as the Thames conservancy is concerned, the constitution of the Corporation of London is such as to render it certain that the most important questions must, in the annual shillings of office, fall aside and be forgotten.
This calls for remedy. The Common Council are grievously mistaken if they fancy " that the public mind will be in a great degree relieved by what has been stated in that Court." The public mind is not likely to be tranquillized by hearing the Chief Magistrate of London, when told that a great loss of life has been occasioned by the neglect of his Court, running away from the subject with such remarks as these—" It appeared to him, that the multitude of piers which had been constructed for private advan- tage constituted a very great inconvenience to the public ; as the steamers were, in the course of their passage, in the habit of stopping every two minutes. The trade of people along the banks was likewise considerably affected by the traffic of the steamers ; and one coal-merchant had declared that his loss in wear and tear of barges, on account of the ceaseless plying of the crowded boats, amounted to at least 500/. a year." Three families have lost their children : what is that in a Lord Mayor's estimation, in comparison with the expense incurred by a coal-merchant ? But the Lord Mayor mistakes entirely the cause of complaint. There are not too many piers, for the public employs them all; nor are there too many steam-boats, for the boats are " crowded." But the piers are insecure; the boats are over-crowded; lives are lost ; and all this evil is owing to the negligence of the Court of Conservancy, of which his civic Lordship is the head.
The Lord Mayor's new-born activity is a little—only a little— more satisfactory than his irrelevant speech. On Thursday he was to go up the river to reexamine all the piers. Why confine his at- tention to the piers ? Has he never heard of the numerous fatal accidents caused by the bad construction of Battersea and Putney Bridges ? Great excitement has been caused by the accident at Blackfriars Bridge happening in the heart of the city, under the public eye : but every year has had its casualties as great in amount, and equally attributable to the neglect of the Thames conservancy. What the Lord Mayor proposes to do now, he ought to have done the first or second week after his installation. Security against the recurrence of such neglect is more important than his survey.
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