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control over the formation of new streets, but its powers are hampered by previous circumstances and by various re strictions. The principal new thoroughfares opened up by the board, besides Queen Victoria Street and the Holborn Viaduct, are Garrick Street, Covent Garden (1861), South wark Street (1864), Northumberland Avenue (1876), and Theobald's Road and Clerkenwell Road, begun in 1873 to connect Oxford Street and Old Street. They have also effected extensive improvements in the neighbourhood of Whitechapel, Shoreditch, Park Lane, and Kensington. The more important schemes in contemplation are a new street from Tottenham Court Road to Charing Cross, another from Oxford Street to Piccadilly Circus, the widening of Coventry Street, of Gray's Inn Road, and of Tooley Street, and alterations of a less extensive character at Kentish Town, Hackney, and Camberwell. A scheme has been put forth by Government to relieve the pressure at Hyde Park Corner. Altogether up to 31st December 1881 the board have expended in street improvements £6,531,856, of which probably one-third will be defrayed by sales of property. In addition to this over £4,000,000 have been spent on the Thames Embankment and Queen Victoria Street, and the board have contributed about £626,077 to defray local improvements by district boards and vestries, as well as £1,360,500 for artisans' dwellings.
Thames Embankment.
The Thames Embankment, with its marine wall of large granite blocks facing the river, supports on the north side a spacious thoroughfare which forms one of the finest promenades in London. The total cost of the various portions of the embankment was over £3,000,000, the greater part of which is being defrayed by the coal and wine duties levied by the City corporation. By the construction (1864-70) of that portion known as the Victoria Embankment, stretching from Blackfriars Bridge to Westminster, about 37 acres of land have been reclaimed, of which 19 are occupied by carriage and footways, 7½ have been conveyed to adjoining proprietors, and about 8 have been formed into ornamental grounds. The Albert Embankment (1865-68), stretching on the south side of the river from Westminster Bridge to Vauxhall Bridge, includes about 9 acres, which are now chiefly occupied by St Thomas's Hospital. The Chelsea Embankment (1871-74), which is the extension of one previously constructed between Vauxhall Bridge and Chelsea Hospital, involved the reclamation of about 9½ acres of ground, now occupied partly by a roadway 70 feet wide, and partly by a flower garden.
Bridges.
There are twelve bridges, other than railway bridges, over the Thames within the metropolitan area, the most easterly being London Bridge and the most westerly Hammersmith Bridge. Three of these, London Bridge, Southwark Bridge, and Blackfriars Bridge, are within the City area. New London Bridge, a noble structure by Rennie, was opened in 1831, having cost £1,458,311. As populous and busy commercial districts extend for several miles to the east of it on both sides of the Thames, it is not only totally inadequate for the requirements of traffic, but is also removed beyond many convenient lines of communication. On this latter account the proposal to widen it – in itself a very unsatisfactory plan – has met with almost no support; but a bill promoted by the Metropolitan Board for erecting a high level bridge at the Tower failed also to commend itself to a committee of the House of Commons. Until 1769, when the Blackfriars Bridge was erected, London Bridge stood alone. Old Blackfriars Bridge was replaced in 1869 by the present one of five iron arches resting on granite, erected from the designs of Page at a cost of £320,000. Southwark Bridge, designed by Rennie, 1815-19, consists of three iron arches of great elegance resting on stone piers, and cost £800,000. Partly from the unsuitability of its approaches, it has not proved of very much service.
The number of passengers and vehicles passing over the London and Blackfriars Bridges in a single day of 1823 is given in the July number of the Monthly Review for that year, and in 1881 similar information was obtained, in regard to the three bridges, for the traffic in the direction of the City. Multiplying these figures by two, we find that the foot passengers crossing London Bridge in 1823 numbered 89,640, while in 1881 they were 157,886, and that the number of vehicles had increased from 6182 to 21,466; that over Blackfriars Bridge the passengers had increased from 61,069 to 87,134, and the vehicles from 4047 to 14,584, while 30,090 passengers and 3560 vehicles passed over Southwark Bridge, the increase in the number of passengers over the three bridges being thus 124,401, and of vehicles 28,381. At the earlier date Southwark Bridge was practically unused, but in 1865 the toll was abolished, and the bridge purchased by the corporation for £218,868. The Metropolitan Toll Bridges Act of 1877 required the Metropolitan Board to extinguish the tolls on all the Thames bridges and the bridge over Deptford Creek, and thereafter to repair and maintain them, the county authorities of Middlesex and Surrey paying each £1200 a year towards their maintenance. The bridges freed by the Act were the Charing Cross foot-bridge, for which £98,540 was paid to the South-Eastern Railway; Waterloo Bridge (1811-17), designed by Rennie in a style similar to London Bridge, constructed at a cost of £1,000,000, and purchased for £475,000; Lambeth Bridge (1862), built of iron at a cost of £40,000, and purchased for £36,049; Vauxhall Bridge (1811-16), similar in form to Southwark Bridge, erected for over £300,000, and purchased for £225,230; Chelsea Suspension Bridge (1858), designed by Page, erected by the Government for £88,000, purchased for £75,000; the Albert Suspension Bridge (1873) and Battersea Bridge, an old wooden structure, both purchased for £300,000; Vaudsworth Bridge for £52,761; Putney Bridge (1729), a picturesque old timber structure, for £58,000; and Hammersmith Bridge for £112,500. Battersea and Putney bridges are about to be re-erected, and Deptford Creek Bridge is to be widened and improved at a cost of £109,091. The total amount of money spent by the board in connexion with bridges up to 18th December 1881 was £1,479,697. The amount to be paid by the board for their maintenance in 1882 is estimated at £90,502. The river is crossed by many railway bridges, and the Thames tunnel, begun in 1825 and completed in 1843, at a cost of £468,000, for the purposes of traffic, was purchased in 1865 by the Great Eastern Company, and is now used as a railway tunnel. A subway under the Thames from Tower Hill to Tooley Street was constructed in 1869 at a cost of £16,000. The communication in the neighbourhood of the river is greatly facilitated by the frequent passenger steamers.
Maintenance of streets.
The cleaning, watering, and paving of the streets are more satisfactory than might be expected from the fact that each district depends solely on its own local authority. Several Acts for paving the Strand were passed in the 14th century, and in the 16th century for the streets outside the City. In 1614 the citizens began to pave the margins of the streets before their doors, but the middle of the streets were laid with large pebbles very unevenly. In 1661 the money obtained from hackney coach licences, £5 for each annually, was applied to keeping them in repair. The use of squared granite blocks, with raised footways, was introduced by Acts of Parliament for Westminster in 1761, and for London generally in 1766. Within the last twenty years asphalt and wooden pavement have been largely substituted for granite in the principal thoroughfares.
Conveyances.
Hackney coaches are first mentioned in 1625, when they were kept at inns, and numbered altogether only 20. In 1652 their number was limited to 200, in 1662 to 400, in 1694 to 700, in 1715 to 800, in 1771 to 1000, and in 1799 to 1200. In 1832 the restriction of their number was abolished. The number of cab drivers in 1871 was 10,043, and of cabs 7818, of which 3295 were hansoms and 4523 four-wheelers; in 1881 the number of drivers was 12,630, and of cabs 9652, of which 5805 were hansoms and only 3847 four-wheelers. Omnibuses were first introduced in 1829. Many of the principal streets are too crowded for tramways, but in South London tramcars are more used than omnibuses, and there are also several routes in the northern and eastern districts. The Metropolitan and Metropolitan District Railway lines, which run partly underground, and form almost a complete belt round the "inner circle" of London, with several branches intersecting it, and others communicating with various suburban lines, have proved invaluable in relieving the throng of vehicles on the streets, and in affording rapid communication between important points; but the railway system in and around London has suffered greatly in directness from the absence of a complete plan embracing proper connecting links between the lines of the several companies. The annual number of passengers on the Metropolitan Railway is now about 60 millions. The Regent, Grand Junction, and several other canals, besides connecting London with the internal navigation of
