COMMENCEMENT OF THAMES PURIFICATION.
Ckrr of evil cometh good : a case of cholera has already appeared in the metropolis, and. the House of Commons is alarmed, as well as disgusted, at the atmosphere amidst which it resides. The responsible Ministers have already been questioned upon the sub- ject, and they have answered with palliatives. Lord JOhn. Man- ners is "by no means inclined to believe that some beneficial change could not be made" in the state of the Thames ; but the bill, he says, will be large, as the task is large,—too large for the Metropolis alone to undertake it. Meanwhile, Lord John, with commendable assiduity, is literally engaged in drugging the
Thames ; barge-loads of lime are thrown into the water to pm-if; it ; and in order to render the atmosphere available for honour- able lungs, it is, notwithstanding Lord John's known contempt for "arts and science," previously "made to pass in the ventilating. process through a weak solution of chloride of zinc." Even when the Honse sits in its Select Committees, the zephyr which enters through the window is made to pass over dishes of chloride of lime or zinc until it is charged with perfumes anything but roseate. Thus Parliament sits like an old lady, on the bias of the fetid Thames, not having means enough to change its lodging at present, but diminishing thPauisance with palliatives from the druggist's shop !
The whole combination of circumstances is indeed the most ludicrous satire that a powerful Legislature ever passed upon it- self. Parliament caused its own palace to be built down in the lowlands, by the Thames ; it then discovered the necessity, as it had not kept away from that large drain, of restoring n the purity of the river, and it handed over the business to the Metropolitan Board of Works, which was designedly made incompetent for the office ; and now Sir Benjamin Hall proposes to rescue us by handing back the subjeet to the Executive, which should act through a Commission. This is not a bad idea ; but it occurs to us that the tedile in office is a patrician who has scarcely shown the power of a Hercules to grapple with an Acheloiis, but has justly measured his own power in making himself the aid& of Play-grounds. Besides, the works connected with the purifica- tion of the Thames are likely to last out the sedileship of a John Manners—indeed Cabinets have just at present such a transitory look, that one desires some more stable administration than her Majesty's Government is likely to furnish.
More or less we have all the requisites except the Executive. The money could of course be raised ; be it three and a half mil- lions or five millions, it is not more than could be obtained to make a railway whose shareholders and passengers would not equal in number the whole inhabitants in the Metropolis. As to plans and designs' they are even redundant. The latest plan of all, that suggested by the Sewage Commissioners, whose report has just issued, looks upon the whole the best that we have yet had. If there are engineers anywhere in the world, we presume they are in England. The necessity is admitted, it is flagrant. The desire is professed on all sides. There wants nothing but the Executive, which we seek in vain when we look either to the municipality or to her Majesty's Government.
It is a case which demands a special Executive, and there is no reason why it should not be created. Perhaps the best of all forms would be a Parliamentary Commission, appointing the few very best, ablest, and highest men ; allotting them a special in- come for that duty, say four thousand pounds a piece ; giving them ample power, and ample credit, leavmg them to send in the bill at the end of the works ; and only requiring, first, that they should set about the business immeaiately, and seeondly,t they should report progress to the Home Office and to ParliamenZ,N say, every two months. This would be a Provisional Govern- ment ad hoe it would give us the means of using the resources which exist to meet the want which is clamorous.
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