• the House is inquiring about a high-level bridge which
is to cross the Thames near the Tower, and which certain wharfingers think will ruin their business. A Mr. C. E. Grissell, a person "of no profession," who had attended the proceedings of the Committee, declared to the solicitors for the wharfingers that he could and would control the verdict of the Committee for a certain sum, £2,000, inducing them to report that compensa- tion must be paid to the wharfingers. This would make the expense so great, that the bridge would be abandoned. The solicitors brought the matter before the Committee, and Lord H. Lennox, Chairman of the Committee, informed the House, which, after some discussion \ of the method to be pursued, decided on a Committee of Investigation. Mr. C. Grissell now declares, before this Committee, that his offer was a practical joke, and he is described as so flighty that this may be the truth. A strict investigation is, however, none the less required, as those private Committees are so little watched by the public, that charges of corruption might readily obtain currency, and perhaps credence. It is not corruption itself, so much as the loss of confidence caused by a suspicion of corruption, which is the danger in England.
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