The greatest of all the improvements that belong to this period was the Thames Embankment, which had formed part of Wren's scheme for the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire. Not until nearly two hundred years had elapsed was Parliamentary sanction obtained for carrying out the plan. It was vigorously opposed in the House of Lords by the Duke of Buccleuch, and _Punch_, on July 5, 1862, published a cartoon with the heading, "Sawney stops the way." John Bull, driving a bus labelled "Embankment," is confronted by a fully armed and kilted Scottish chieftain waving a banner inscribed, "Buccleuch and No Thoroughfare," while _Punch_ as conductor remarks, "Drive on, John; never mind the Scotchman." John Bull drove on, and early in August, 1868, _Punch_ celebrated (though somewhat ironically) the completion of the footway opening of the Embankment from Westminster to Essex Street. As Sir Joseph Bazalgette, who was responsible for the plans and their execution, was engineer to the Metropolitan Board of Works, _Punch_ could not resist the opportunity for ridiculing his old _bête noire_ Sir John Thwaites, the chairman, and his colleagues, the _feu de joie_ loosed off by a sergeant and two bombardiers R.A., and the subsequent junketings at Woolwich. The Victoria Embankment from Blackfriars to Westminster was not opened to the public till 1870, the Albert Embankment on the south side from Westminster Bridge to Vauxhall in the same year; while the Chelsea Embankment from Battersea Bridge to Chelsea Bridge was finished in 1874. Taken together they constitute the greatest addition to the amenities of London made in our time, to say nothing of the reclamation of swamp and slime from the river and their conversion into what is perhaps the finest roadway in London. Cleopatra's Needle was originally presented to England by Mehemet Ali in 1819. Engineering difficulties stood in the way of its removal from Egypt for nearly sixty years. The question is discussed by _Punch_ in 1869, but it was not till 1877 that the munificence of Sir Erasmus Wilson and the skill of John Dixon solved the problem of its transportation to its present site. [Illustration: UNDERGROUND RAILWAY OLD LADY: "Well, I'm sure no woman with the least sense of decency would think of going down _that_ way to it."] [Sidenote: _London Railways_]