through the window to call to the guard that he wished to change his seat at the next station.
As he stood with his head and part of his body out of the window, she saw they were coming to a tunnel! They were on the line next the wall; she saw it coming—and coming; but she would not speak. The next moment there was a blow—a crunch, and her husband’s corpse fell heavily across her lap with the skull fractured by concussion against the wall. How she travelled miles in the darkening afternoon of that awful twenty-ninth of February, with that dead body on her knee, her fair hand stained by his blood, how when they found her at last, she was almost paralysed to idiotcy; how she lingered but a few weeks after him, and then faded away a prey to the deepest remorse, time and space fail me to tell here; but Dr. Healall’s narrative was as solemn as it was thrilling, and both Charley and I left M, sobered and saddened men.
NEW WESTMINSTER BRIDGE.
General literature takes little notice of parliamentary blue-books, and an extract from one of these somewhat heavy volumes is scarcely a dainty dish to set before a reader; let us, however, draw attention to the following exceedingly brief announcement copied from a blue-book on Westminster Bridge:
In 1853 an Act was passed enabling the commissioners of her Majesty’s works and public buildings to remove the present bridge, and to build a new bridge on or near the site thereof.
The contract for the execution of the works was entered into with Messrs. Mare and Co., April, 1854, and they were shortly afterwards commenced.
In September, 1855, Messrs Mare became bankrupts, and the works were carried on by the assignees until the end of March, 1856, when they were entirely suspended. In the same year communications were entered into with the Messrs. Cochrane, which ended in their taking up the contract, the final arrangements between the firm and the commissioners being completed, and the work recommenced on the 1st September, 1858.
Such is a rapid resume of the past history of the new bridge, uninteresting enough to unprofessional readers, and so with them we willingly turn to a nearer view of the work itself, as it is now being carried out, and endeavour to gain some slight insight into the philosophy of bridge-building. In this enlightened age, which ill natured folk call “sciolistic,” and hopeful people “progressive;” when amateurs abound, and we often see not only “every man his own doctor” (thanks to the efforts of homœopaths, and their portable medicine-chests), but sometimes too every man his own architect, lawyer—nay, even parson, it is curious to remark how, with all this stripping off of old prejudices—this “admission free” into Eleusinian mysteries, there remains one profession which is yet a terra incognita to the general public, one branch of work-a-day knowledge whose technical terms even, to say nothing of its principles, are rarely attempted by the uninitiated.
Comparatively few of those who read the reports on the New Westminster Bridge have very clear ideas of a great deal there put forth; they probably rise from the perusal with a vague notion that it is a great work, and that our engineers are miracles of cleverness, terribly tried by slow contractors. The fact is that engineering is too ponderous, and too responsible a profession to be lightly laid siege to; it has to deal with matter in its rudest forms, and requiring exactness and truthfulness in idea and performance lends no mystery to shroud the mistakes of even its most favoured votaries. Thus, though most of us have some knowledge of the slang, and can talk learnedly on subjects connected with law, physic, or divinity, though civilians have proved how much military and naval knowledge there really is among them, and though our ladies even are often wise on architectural matters, very few have a similarly extensive acquaintance either with the vocabulary or the leading principles of engineering science. We will therefore attempt to give a simple, untechnical exposition of the main features of the great metropolitan work now going on at Westminster. And as construction is ever a nobler work than destruction, let us who have heard much lately how French and Austrian armies break Italian bridges, spend half an hour in learning how we Englishmen build ours.
To make any attempt of this kind intelligible and connected, it will be necessary to give as rapid and comprehensive a sketch of the general design and proportions of the new bridge as possible, before we proceed to a more detailed view of the works themselves. Let therefore all readers given to laziness scruple not to skip several of the coming paragraphs, and so escape the hated “facts and figures.”
New Westminster Bridge will be of iron, and is to be built upon the site of the present structure; being, however, some 36 feet wider than the old bridge, it will cover the whole of the present area, and an additional 36 feet on the western side of the river. This increase in width will allow of the pulling down the old edifice, without involving any cessation of the traffic, and the western portion or “first half” of the bridge, as it is called, being now in course of erection close alongside the existing stone-work will, when opened, form the roadway over which the cabs, omnibuses, and foot-passengers will pass, while the old bridge will be quarried out, and cleared completely away to make room for the erection of the remaining width or “second half” of the new.
When this is completed, the river will be spanned by seven arches of elliptical form, varying in their openings from 120 feet in the widest, to 95 feet 9 inches in the narrowest. These arches are supported on granite piers, 10 feet 6 inches wide for the largest and 10 feet for the smallest, standing some 2 feet from the surface of the river at high tide. The headways of the arches, measured from high-water line, vary from 20 feet in the centre to 16 feet on the Surrey and Middlesex shores. These heights are below those of the present bridge; but let no invidious captain of a river