90 THE BUILDING NEWS. Fes: 2, 1872: Seo ne PROPOSED METROPOLITAN IMPROVE- MENTS, 2 1872. S most of our readers will be aware, the Metro- politan Board of Works intends to obtain power from Parliament during the coming session to carry out various improvements in the metropolis during the next year or two, the estimated cost of which will be £1,850,000. These improvements comprise, as before stated, (1) the new street from Vernon-place, Bloomsbury, to Shoreditch ; (2) the opening up of a new street from Shoreditch High-street to the Bethnal-green-road, thus giving to a thickly-populated and large district —hitherto and almost inaccessible from south and west—something like an adequate approach from the busy parts of London; (3) the widening of High-street, Shoreditch’; (4) the widen- ing of the Harrow-road; (5) the widening of New- ington Butts by the removal of the parish church, &e.; (6) the widening of High-street, Wapping; and other improvements of a minor character. No one well acquainted with London and the means of communication for traffic from one part to another can deny the need of the proposed improvements, which will benefit not merely the localities in which the necessary works are to be carried out, but will also greatly benefit the metropolis at large,in that some of the most crowded lines of through traffic will thereby be relieved. For instance, the proposed street from New Oxford-street to Shoreditch will relieve the City of much heavy traflic; High-street, Shore- ditch, and Newington Butts are main lines of thoroughfare leading respectively north and south of the City, serving on the north such thickly-peopled suburbs as Hackney, Kingsland, Dalston, Stoke Newington, and Clapton, and on the south Brixton, Kennington, and Clapham. The Wapping improve- ment, too, is not one of mere local importance. At the wharves of Wapping goods are landed from all parts of our own coasts and those of the Continent ; large quantities of these goods are of an extremely perishable nature, and require to be delivered as soon as possible to the consignees, whether in our markets or to tradesmen in the various parts of the metropo- polis. Yet any one who knows Wapping will be aware of the chronic condition of block from which it (by reason of its contracted width) and the trade of the metropolis at large suffer. Notwithstanding all this, some of the vestries and local boards (notably those of Islington and Fulham) are endeavouring to prevent these improvements being carried out, because, forsooth, they will be of no immediate benefit to the localities represented by those bodies. While conscious that the Metropolitan Board of Works is not without its failings and shortcomings, we have always admitted that it has done part of the work which it was created to do satisfactorily, and we are glad to see that Mr. W. Newton, the repre- sentative of Mile End Old Town at the Board, has come forward in defence of the Board’s scheme for the improvements we haye enumerated. He, for the reasons we have advanced, and by additional arguments, combats the notions of the vestrymen of Islington, Fulham, and elsewhere, and shows that, for obvious reasons, the Board was constituted a re- presentative metropolitan authority for the purpose of carrying out, among other objects, such improve- ments as those now in question. As to the opposi- tion evinced to the scheme on the score of increased taxation, Mr. Newton shows that while in 1868 and 1869 the rate in the pound in respect of the Board’s requirements was 6d., in 1870 5d., andin 1871 three- pence and three-tenths of a penny, in the present year, and in 1873, the rate will not exceed 24d., in the pound. The sale of surplus land, not yet realised, will it is calculated, bring in, in the new street from the Mansion House alone, about £1,700,000, and the Board possesses other property which is, as uear as can be estimated, of the value of £2,000,000. The improve- ments contemplated by the Board, therefore, in their Bill of the present session, will not increase the amount of rates payable by the inhabitants of the metropolis at large. We have received a copy of Mr. Newton’s speech on the subject at a recent meeting of the Mile End Vestry, in which he at some length very ably supports the proposed improye- ments, hemmed in CHURCH OF S. PETER, BURY. TWNHE church of S. Peter, near Bury, Lancashire, of which views are given in this number, is in the Early English style, the plan being nave with aisles and apsidal chancel, with tower and spire at the north-west corner. There will be two vestries, the larger one, being for choristers, on the north side, and organ chamber on the south side of the chancel. The reredos, pulpit, and font will be of Caen stone and marble, the former haying gold mosaics in the panels. The facing of the interior is red brick, of a very excellent colour, and a few black bands and patterns; the stonework is Bath and blue Burnley. The exterior is being executed in parpoint, with Yorkshire stone dressings and red Runcorn stone bands. The dimensions of the nave are 75ft. by 48ft., in- cluding aisles; and of the chancel, 36ft. by 24ft., the height to ridge in both cases being 52ft.; the height of the spire, when finished, will be A7iit. The church will accommodate with ease 500 persons. The cost of the church, inclusive of heating appara- tus, laying out of grounds, boundary walling, and architect’s commission—but exclusive of the upper portion of tower and spire—will be £4,500. The architects are Messrs. Maycock & Bell, Collyhurst Chambers, Bond-street, Manchester. ————_>—_—_- ORIENTAL ART. M* W. J. MUCKLEY, the head master of the Manchester School of Art, concludes his last report with a recommendation that students should study Oriental art. He said:—In my last report I just referred to the leading features of in- stinctive art as distinguished from the cultivated arts of Europe, and I now wish to mention the sub- ject again in a manner which I feel relates to the interest of this school, and to most of the art manu- facturers of the country, but which attaches singular importance to the specialities of this district in particu- lar. It is, then, my impression that, amongst the expen- ditures madeon account of art education in Manchester, a portion might be most profitably employed in the acquisition of examples of Japanese, Chinese, and Indian art manufacture of various kinds ; for certain itis that the peculiarities of treatment which textile fabrics require demand a distinct consideration for themselves, a feature that is not called for in any other object of industrial art ; and this peculiarity and expression to which I refer is to be found toa larger ex- tent, and in a more perfect degree, in matters of Orien- tal art manufacture than in those of any other country in the world. Touching the works of the Japanese in their best phases, they are performances on which one might dwell with ecstasy, and this quality solely relates to their ornamental expressions, as to com- position, colour, quantities, and selection of forms for contrast, and perfect unity withal. Without a tale to tell, or a legend to lead out the imagination of the ornamentist—without the grand and cultivated ten- dencies of the best European schools—without the higher aim which the chief Italian masters have sought to express, the arts of the Japanese are simply matchlessin their beauty and entirety, completely filling the eyes of the educated beholder ; for it is astonish- ing to see with what untaught subtlety and perfect cunning they apply their devices to the numerous surfaces they are called upon to decorate. It may appear somewhat out of place to refer, as T have done in this report, to the characteristics of Oriental art, but my impressions on the point have become very strong, from the consideration of years relating to it; and if you see your way to acquire for the school, either by loan or otherwise, objects of Oriental art of the kind to which I allude, they cannot fail to communicate most valuable information to the students. The humanising influence of the fine and industrial arts ought, in my opinion, to be kept constantly before us, as forming a sufficient reason for their cultivation in the land; and I am disposed to think that no other pursuit is capable of yielding so much pure, ready, and lasting picasure as that of the painter or ornamentist. A work of true beauty gives delight and happiness without effort, and in the fullest manner, so long as a vestige of it remains; and this being so, surely it must be an important part of the functions of our race to cultivate that element which is so well able to draw our sympathies from the grosser things of life, rais- ing them to the standard of thos? hidden harmonies to which the best parts of our being, I am persuaded, are attuned See The Joiners’ Company has placed at the disposal of the Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institution, Southampton-buildings, three prizes for the encour- agement of technical education. THE NEW LAW COURTS. R. E. M. BARRY’S pamphlet in reply to Mr. Street’s recent observations has reached us Mr. Barry has ayoided, and intends to avoid, all criticism of Mr. Street’s design, but he cannot allow Mr. Street, unchallenged, to misrepresent his posi- tion in the competition. He starts with the asser- tion that Mr. Street, while unable to deny that with his own elevation were selected his (Mr. Barry’s) plan and arrangement, and that the latter were the vital points of the competition, has kept this fact in the background, and has endeavoured, by stringing together fancied objections to the plan, to convey the impression that its rejection involved no ground of complaint. The special passages in Mr. Street’s pamphlet at which Mr. Barry feels aggrieved are those on pp. 7, 8, 9, where Mr. Street, speaking of the preliminary inquiries into the merits of the plans, asserts that “the first report resulted most unfavourably for Mr. Barry ; the second was very unfavourable to Mr. Barry's plans . . . and the fourth was extremely against Mr. Barry, whose design was estimated as being likely to cost no less than £87,000 more than mine was.” These preliminary reports, Mr. Barry argues, will not, if fairly examined, justify Mr. Street’s argu- ment that a preference was entertained for his design ; but if they did he considers they would be beside the question, and rests his position on the decision of the judges on the whole question in their report made to the Treasury on the 30th July, 1867, in which they are of opinion that “the de- sign of Mr. Barry is the best in regard to plan and distribution of the interior.” Mr. Barry also alleges that Mr. Street afterwards accepted his sole appointment as architect without consulting him. Mr. Street has sent us a manuscript copy of a postscript to his pamphlet, briefly replying to Mr. Barry’s assertions. It was necessary, says Mr. Street,for him to reply to Mr. Fergussou’s statements. He said no more than he conld help, and he is an- xious now, as he was then, to say no more than can be avoided about Mr. Barry. He, however, ad- heres entirely te the statements he has made, as they are founded strictly and carefully on the proceedings of the Courts of Justice Commis- sion, where all the documents are published. Mr. Street denies Mr. Barry’s statement that he ac- cepted his separate appointment as architect without communication with him, the fact being that he wrote to him within a day of his appointment and received a reply from him. “I might not,” adds Mr. Street, ‘have acted exactly as I did if I had known all that I afterwards knew. I supposed when I was protesting that the award of the Judges of Design should be final that I was being supported by Mr. Barry, who was in constant friendly com- munication with me on thesame point. I was un- feignedly astonished, however, when I found among the letters printed by order of the House of Lords,. May 13, 1869, one from Mr. Barry dated Feb. 26, 1868 (ie., just after my letter to Lord Derby, in his favour), in which he says ‘Itis further stated in the case that Mr. Barry and Mr, Street insist on their joint employment under the terms of the award. This statement is altogether erroneous, as far as I am concerned, for I have never insisted on my em- ployment jointly with Mr. Street.” Mr. Street further protests against the introduction of the National Gallery as irrelevant, aud points out that Messrs. Shaw & Pownall’s report, which Mr. Barry throughout his pamphlet persists in considering ex- haustive and final, was in reality only one of four reports, and was only considered as such by them- selyes. The real final tribunal, Mr. Street points out, by whom was made the joint award in favour of himself and Mr. Barry, was that which consisted of the Judges of Design, assisted by Messrs. Shaw & Pownall. We do not think Mr. Barry has improved his posi- tion by the publication of this pamphlet.
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