BADDELEY'S STATIONARY FIRE-ENGINE. Sir,-At page 50 of your present voJume, I stated, that out of every ten American Patents, nine were either for some useless contrivance, or for some slight modification of previous English inventions. At that time I brought for ward an instance of the latter kind; I now beg to refer to one of the useless description. At page 153 of your last volume, there is a description of a patent taken out by Mr. Thomas Odiorn, of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, for a fire-engine, with a circular platform on the top of the cistern, upon which the persons who work the engine are to walk. The whole disposition of the thing is bad, but the idea of carrying about a platform ample enough for this purpose, as part and parcel of a fire-engine, is preposterous. One of your correspondents (T. P.) at page 9 of the same volume, has proposed a plan in some respects similar to the foregoing, but T. P. appears to have wholly overlooked the stability necessary for the purpose, which Mr. Odiorn had provided for, although at the sacrifice of all reasonable portability. The real fact is, that the only way in which the principle proposed by these two gentlemen, can be employed with 'any prospect of advantage, is in stationary engines; and the prefixed sketch, fig. 1, is a stationary fire-engine which I designed a long time ago, calculated for the yards of public buildings or large manufactories. It consists of a cast-iron cylindrical casing a, with a fluted domeshaped cap b, having sixteen holes c c, round its circumference at the base, for the insertion of handspikes. There is a screwed nozzle at e, to which the leather hose is affixed. Fig. 2, is a section, showing the internal arrangement. dd, is a strong iron upright, which, with two others, ff, support the crank-shaft g. The dome b, and its cylindrical base with the lever holes cc, turns freely upon the upright d, carrying with it the bevel wheel h, which taking into another similar wheel on the crank-shaft, gives motion by means of slings to the two pistons in the working barrels ii; these are six inches in diameter with a twelve-inch stroke. Water is drawn from a well, &c., by the suction or feed-pipe k; 7, is the air-vessel, from whence the water passes out at the screwed nozzle e. Wherever water can be obtained in sufficient abundance, either from a well, tank, &c., an engine of this description is calculated to render most efficient service in case of fire. There are sixteen places for the insertion of handspikes, to each of which at least two men-perhaps three -might apply their strength, under favourable circumstances. The best way of keeping leather hose in readiness for stationary fire-engines, is to have it coiled upon a reel, and mounted on a small hand-barrow, which might also carry the levers, branch-pipe, hatchet, crow-bar, a few buckets, and other apparatus useful at fires. I am, Sir, London, March 6, 1837. M'CULLOCH'S STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. (Second Notice.) After "Manufactures" naturally succeeds "Commerce," which of course gives room for plenty of statistical display, in the shape of official Tables of Exports and Imports, Customs' Duties, and so forth; and this leads to a section on the "Means and instruments by which Commerce is facilitated and carried on," which brings to mind another remarkahle omission. The present age has been styled the age of Literature and Locomotion; we have already seen that our author thinks fit to leave out the statistics of the former, and it will, therefore, probably excite the less surprise that he also does the same by the latter. We have, it is true, a short account of the general state of the Turnpike Roads; we have, also, somewhere about three pages devoted to the history of Railroads in Great Britain (!) and a few more to that of its Canals. But we look in vain for any sketch of those means of Locomotion for which our island is so pre-eminently distinguished; we find no information as to mail and stage coaches, vans, waggons, steamers by land and water, hackney-coaches, cabs, omnibuses, or the thousand and one other ways of "getting along" in town and country. The whole subject of "Travelling" 1s left to take care of itself. Roads, canals, and railways, are only mentioned in so far as they are connected with the facilities they afford to commerce on the large scale-the commerce of the extensive merchant; for Mr. M'Culloch appears to think that retail commerce,-that which concerns itself with the more immediate supply of the wants of the population, hardly comes within the scope of his work. In this he is, of course, Lost wofully mistaken: of the two, the latter should have received the most attention, in a work professing to afford a general survey of the condition of the kingdom and its inhabitants. The remaining, and by far the larger portion of the second volume, is taken up with a very lengthy and widely-printed series of articles on the Constitution and Government, Courts of Law, Corpora tions and Religious Establishments of the three Kingdoms. This division might well have borné compression,- nor do we see the necessity of printing it in a larger character than the rest of the work, and so making it occupy much more room than was absolutely necessary. It would have answered every proper purpose of the work to have dismissed most of these subjects with much less particularity of detail than has been bestowed upon them, particularly those parts relating to the forms and practices of the courts of law, for the verbosity of which we are indebted to the care taken by the Editor to obtain the assistance of "professior al gentlemen for those departments. A division of "Miscellaneous Particulars" concludes the work, the separate chapters relating severally to "Establishments for Public Education," "Revenue and Expenditure," "Army and Navy," "Vital Statistics," and "Provision for the Poor;" and a fragment has also been broken off from this department, and added to the first volume, apropos of nothing, for the sake of making the volumes of uniform thickness-the most important article of which, is an "Essay on the Origin and Progress of the English Language," of a very disappointing character. Under such a head, the reader naturally looks, above all things, for some account of the statistics of the language; for details as to the countries in which it is spoken, and the numbers speaking it-of the extent to which it is known in foreign lands, and to which it is unknown among the nations under British sway :—in place of all this, we are presented with a very common-place sketch (all its facts being In another important respect, Mr. M'Culloch is also found wanting. From the comprehensive nature of his title, in which the British Empire" shines so conspicuously, it might well be inferred that our immense colonial possessions were to receive more than the usual quantum of attention: so far from this being the case, however, our author confines himself so strictly to the department of "Home Affairs," that he dismisses the whole of the Colonies, India and all, in something less than a dozen pages. Yet, with all this exclusiveness, it is remarkable that what may be termed our "domestic statistics" are strangely neglected. We have already noticed some unaccountable omissions of this kind, to which we have to add, that, while Corporations and Courts of Law are treated of, at even a tedious length, public institutions of more direct and practical usefulness are completely neglected, or, if mentioned at all, only in a cursory and incidental manner. The modes of obtaining a supply of water in London and the other principal towns of the kingdom, might surely have filled a few pages quite as appropriately as a notice of the Insolvent Debtors' Court; and Gas-lighting would have headed a section as well as the Kirk Session of Scotland. Even a little information, also, as to the Amusements of the People (of which there is not one word) might have proved acceptable, even had a few pages of the closely -printed Returns on Crimes and Punishments been left out to make room for them. Literature being excluded, of course no details as to Literary and Scientific Institutions are to be looked for. The book is exceedingly well printed and "got up," but what decoration is bestowed upon it is entirely typographical; it contains not a single wood-cut or other embellishment, not even a map of the British Islands. It is altogether, par excellence, "the book of deficiencies," and very ill qualified, in almost every respect, to fill up that hiatus in our literature which it professes to supply. ALDERMAN WOOD'S METROPOLITAN IMPROVEMENTS. Report from the Select Committee of Metropolis Improvements, with the Minutes of Evidence and Appendix. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed. The nation owes an eternal debt of gratitude to George IV. for the planning and effecting of Regent-street. The profusion which was natural to him was on that occasion more productive of solid good, than perhaps the wisest and most rigid economy would have been. Amid the dingy, dismal, unaspiring streets of London, the lavish splendour of what is indeed a Royal road," rose like an exhalation," and, by the force of contrast, attracted an attention which the chastest efforts of corrected taste might long have courted in vain. The public attention once aroused, the effect was soon evident. The march of public affairs has not been so changed by the carrying of the Reform Bill, as the aspect of our street architecture by the creation of Regentstreet. Since then we may have had to complain, and but too truly, of bad taste, and very bad taste, indeed; but still in most cases even the bad taste has been gorgeous; in every thing that has been done there has been at least an attempt at splendour; and whatever London may become, it is at least sure not to remain that mere inanimate " mass of bricks and mortar," that dowdy "agglomeration of country towns" as which it might once with but too much show of reason be taunted. The recent improvements effected in the City-which bear so plainly upon them the stamp of the influence of their prototype-have, it appears, awakened an appetite for more. This might have been expected, for in some respects they surpass even those of the west end. The makers of Regent-street had to force their way through a dull, monotonous mass of streets, which did not afford them a single great object of architecture to adorn their new thoroughfare; they found absolutely nothing, but created all. In the City it is just the reverse; the finest parts of the new improvements are those which the improvers have merely brought to light from the dark recesses in which they formerly lay concealed. By widening Princes-street, by forming Moorgatestreet, they have thrown the Bank more into view; by the demolition of the un lucky"Lucky Corner," they have shown to more advantage the Mansion House, and, as it were, unburied the church of St. Mary Woolnoth*while, to terminate the view, as if built expressly for that purpose, rises above the houses the lofty column of the Monument. The same kind of result is sure to attend almost every similar operation of widening and beautifying in these thickly-crowded regions. In the narrow streets of the City there are many fine buildings so elbowed in, that every atom of their effect is lost, that the architect himself could hardly form an idea of their beautiesbut which, if extricated from the shapeless confusion that surrounds them, would at once take their place as worthy of ornamenting any street, however splendid, that can be formed for their display. To quote no minor instance, let the citizen of London only think of St. Paul's. The mere creation of a square, no matter how built or how ornamented, one side of which should be formed by one side of that magnificent structure; or of a street leading up to either its northern or southern door, would supply a point of beauty which the expenditure of twenty times the sum in any other part of the metropolis could not rival. There are spots in its neighbourhood which might justify us in quoting, with a slight alteration, in reference to the architectural enthusiast, the words of Wordsworth with regard to the lover *It is to be hoped there is no truth in the report, that it is intended to reconstruct the Globe Fire-office nearly on its present site, with merely the edge shaved off. Just at that part of the City there can hardly be too much space allowed both for the convenience of commerce and for the ap pearance of the buildings. The City improvers should not, to save a few pounds at the end of their undertaking, destroy half the effect of what it has cost hundreds of thousands to execute. tion; that with a population of a million and a half crowded together in one vast capital, the streets and roadways which might suffice when its population was only half a million can no longer be deemed sufficient. The two motivesthe desire of having a city both better "pierced" and better looking than we are yet able to boast of probably co operated in inducing the City Member, Mr. Alderman Wood, to apply to the House of Commons for the Committee on "Metropolitan Improvements," the Report of which it is now our intention to examine. We regret to say, that the Committee does not appear to have taken so wide a survey of the subject as was generally expected, from the comprehensiveness of its title. It was thought that it would make a point of taking into consideration all the suggestions for the improvement of the metropolis that have of late years been prominently brought before the public, with the view of deciding on their eligibility or practicability. We find, however, not a word on the subject of Colonel Trench's Thames Quay, of Mr. Martin's plan for the improvement of the banks of the river, or any other project of the kind. The suggestion of Sir Robert Peel, that the Committee should not only Occupy itself with the improvements called for at the moment, but also with those likely to be required in course of time by the increasing extension of the metropolis, has likewise been treated with disregard, though evidently founded on the plainest dictates of common sense. No means appear to have been taken to secure to the Committee an acquaintance with the number of plans which have of late years been formed, but not yet published, by ingenious men bearing on the object in view; and it does not even seem to have informed itself of the plans in contemplation by the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, who are said to meditate extensive alterations in some of the very districts this Committee talks of improving also. The only "metropolitan improvements," in fact, brought under their notice, with a very few exceptions, are a lot of Alderman Wood's own! The evidence altogether occupies only fifty-four pages, and of these scarcely more than ten contain information bear ing even on the subject of the Alderman's improvements; the remainder are occupied with discussions on the preferability of raising the 1,500,000l. required by means of a lottery (to which Mr. Bish, who is summoned as a witness, doth most seriously incline") or by a tax of 6d. per ton on coals, which it is stated that, somehow or other, the poor will not feel at all! What these improvements are we shall now afford the reader an opportunity of judging, by extracting a list of them from the Committee's Report, to which we shall take the liberty of adding a few remarks of our own. "City of London.-A new street from the Bank to the General Post-office." This is to run from the Lothbury end of Moorgate-street to the corner of the Post-office, near Goldsmiths' Hall. Were this street in existence already, it might be preferable certainly to the route now adopted, from one of these points to the other, but we see no advantage to be gained by its formation adequate to the expense of forming it. There is already one street (Cheapside and the Poultry) running direct from the Bank to the Postoffice. "A new street from the General Postoffice to Newgate-street." This proposal appears at first rather enigmatical, inasmuch as there is already St. Martin's-le-Grand in existence to supply the desideratum. By referring to the lithographic plan, however, we discover that the street proposed is one to run direct from the portico of the Postoffice to about the middle of Newgatestreet, coming out near the new buildings of Christ's Hospital. It is difficult to see what can be the meaning of such a proposal as this. What could the Alderman be thinking of? The expense of this scheme would be enormous, its utility-0. "The improvement of Skinner-street and Holborn-hill." This is to be effected by carrying a bridge over the valley of Holborn at the height of twenty-one feet above Farringdon-street, while the roadway is to be widened, and part of it left at its present level. The same improvement, with some difference in the levels, was proposed to be executed by a joint-stock company about a year ago. In fact, the scheme was often proposed before, and is any thing but new- it has, however, a greater recommendation, in obvious utility. "A new street from the Mansion House to the Southwark-bridge." This is to commence in front of the church of St. Stephen, Walbrook; why not at the grand meeting of the roads now in progress of formation in front of the Mansion House, we are at a loss to perceive; that is, if the plan be adopted at all. The scheme appears to be a favourite, but its advantages are not very obvious. By conveying the traffic of another bridge to the line of Princes-street and the City-road, it seems likely rather to augment than to diminish the complaint of over-crowded thoroughfares. Were a new way carried instead, as has been proposed, from Southwark-bridge to the Watling-street corner of St. Paul's Churchyard, a communication would be effected with the Aldersgate-street and Goswell-street line of road, which would tend to vivify a part of the town at present not over alive. "A new street from St. Paul's Cathedral to Blackfriars-bridge." With regard to exhibiting the Cathedral, this improvement would be little better than a duplicate of Ludgate-hill, as it approaches the front of the building at-nearly the same angle. For the pur pose of display, a street coming up to either side or to the back of the Cathedral, would evidently be superior to either, as the great feature of that majestic edifice, the dome, is too far removed from the front to be seen in all its grandeur except at some distance. A street, or rather a square, from the southern door to the water-side would, perhaps, be the most eligible way of effecting an object which every admirer of architecture in the metropolis must be eager to see effected-the proper exhibition of a masterpiece which London is not likely ever to equal. This square would afford an excellent site for a new building for Doctors' Commons, &c., a little more worthy of the business transacted there. "County of Middlesex.-A new street from Farringdon-street to the Sessions' House, Clerkenwell." This is the well-known scheme which has now been in agitation some years. The new street here terminatesin a very abrupt and undignified mauner at the back of Hicks's Hall. "A new street from Westminster Abbey to Pimlico." There is hardly a crookeder street now in London than the one which it is here proposed to cut from the front of Westminster Abbey to-where?-to Eatonstreet, Pimlico. The necessity for it we do not exactly see, but we should suggest that a new way be cut immediately from the projector's house to St. Luke's Hospital. Among the other agreeable features of this Westminster Abbey scheme, is the destruction of the old Jerusalem chamber mentioned in history and Shakspeare, as the room in which Henry IV. expired, and so singularly connected with the prediction of his death. "A new street from Oxford-street to Plumtree-street, St. Giles's.' For the last fifty years, at least, there have been very few individuals who have ever taken up a map of London, with the idea of suggesting improvements, who have not at once hit upon the idea of carrying Oxford-street straight on into Holborn. Of all alterations that have been or can be suggested, this is the most obvious; in fact, the only objection to its execution is, that it would deprive society of the most classical remark it possesses on the subject of metropolitan improvements-one which is invariably made, and almost unanimously assented to, whenever the topic arises in conversation. We say almost, because it appears from this Report that there are one or two individuals in London who propose, instead of carrying Oxford-street straight on, so as to enter Holborn about Southampton-street, to make it diverge (in a manner, perhaps, just one grain better than its present abrupt turn-off to Broad-street,) and terminate its career at the end of Plumtree-street, St. Giles's. We hope that this very diminutive improvement will never be carried into effect; indeed, we have few apprehensions that it will, as, in all probability, its execution would effectually prevent that of the very superior one which will otherwise, in all probability, take place in the course of a few years. "A new street from Gower-street to Waterloo-bridge." This is the continuation of Bow-street to the end of Charlotte-street, which the Commissioners of Woods and Forests |