One hundred years ago
The Metropolitan District Railway Company have discovered that quarrell- ing with the House of Commons does not pay. They have a Bill in Parliament, and on Tuesday Mr Marriott moved an instruction to the Committee to which the Bill is referred to insert a clause com- pelling the Company to pull down the ventilating shafts, which poison the Em- bankment. The Committee are to settle any reasonable terms. The motion was hardly opposed, except by the Railway interest, and was carried by 200 to 110. It is understood that the Company will give way; and it is as well they should, as Parliament might, if resisted, give them sharper treatment. It is quite evident from several recent votes that the consti- tuencies will not endure the claim of cor- porations to maltreat the public for their own advantage any longer, and that the Railway interest in particular must dis- mount. We do not despair of seeing a railway chairman hanged, or of recor- ding a Bill compelling the railways to run workmen's trains at a halfpenny a mile.
Spectator, 28 April 1883
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