work being completed in five days. “About the end of the seventeenth century, the improvement of the passage over London Bridge seems to have been actively considered, if not executed: for in 1697, the 8th and 9th year of William III., (chapter xxxvii.,) an Act was passed concerning the Streets in London, Westminster, Southwark, &c. ‘_and for widening the Street at the South end of London Bridge_.’ In section 8 of which, it is stated that ‘the Corporation of London have of late years, with great charge and difficulty, pulled down and new built all the houses upon London Bridge, and caused the street or common passage over the same to be opened and enlarged; which good and public intention is not yet perfected, by reason of certain tenements on or near the South end of the Bridge, which yet continue a great hindrance to commerce by occasioning frequent stops, and endangering the lives of many passengers.’ Commissioners are then appointed to treat with the owners of such houses, as they shall think fit to be pulled down. See the Act itself in Ruffhead’s ‘_Statutes at Large_,’ volume iii., page 687. Again, in the year 1722, during the Mayoralty of Sir Gerard Conyers, an Act was issued by the Corporation of the City, for preserving the passage of the Bridge free, which you may read at length in Motley’s ‘_Seymour’s Survey_,’ volume i., page 49: it ordains that there shall be three persons, appointed by the Governors of Christ’s Hospital, the inhabitants of Bridge Ward Within, and the Bridge-Masters, to give daily attendance at each end of the Bridge. Their duty being, to oblige all carriages coming from Southwark, to keep the West side, and others the contrary; and to prevent any cart from standing across the Bridge to load or unload. It was also ordered, that the Toll Collector--whose station was in the present Watch House, at the North-west corner of the Bridge,--should collect the duties without delay; and, in 1723, they were ‘For every cart or waggon with shod wheels, 4_d._; For a dray with five barrels, 1_d._; For every pipe or butt, 1_d._; For a ton of any goods, 2_d._; for any thing less than a ton, 1_d._;’ which order was directed to be printed and published in the most public places within the City, and upon London Bridge itself. I may merely add, that Maitland tells us in his ‘_History_,’ volume i., page 48, that in 1725, when it was proposed to erect a Bridge at Westminster, Mr. Henry Garbrand, the Deputy Comptroller of London Bridge, and Mr. Bartholomew Sparruck, the Water Carpenter, measured the River at this building, and found it to be 915 feet 1 inch in breadth; the height of the Bridge, 43 feet, 7 inches; the width of the street, 20 feet; and the depth of the houses on each side, 53 feet, or 73 feet in the whole. One of the last fires which happened on London Bridge, took place on the 8th of September in this year, during the Mayoralty of Sir George Mertins, Knight; and, as Motley tells us in his ‘_Seymour’s Survey_,’ volume i.,