City of London, more than five miles downstream, was in that perilous state, on the mere threatening of a bridge at Putney. It was a Mr. Jones, representative of the City of London in that honourable House, who caught the Speaker’s eye and thus held forth, in mingled appeal, warning, and denunciation: “It is impossible to contemplate without feelings of the most afflictive nature the probable success of the Bill now before the House. I am sensible that I can hardly do justice by any words of mine to the apprehensions which not only I myself personally feel upon the vital question, but to those which are felt by every individual in the kingdom who has given this very important subject the smallest share of his consideration. I am free to say, Sir, and I say it with the greater freedom, because I know that the erection of a bridge over the river Thames at Putney will not only injure the great and important city which I have the honour to represent, not only jeopardise it, not only destroy its correspondence and commerce, but actually annihilate it altogether.” It might be thought that this ludicrous extravagance of language would have aroused derisive laughter; but no, the House appears to have taken him seriously, for, “Hear, hears” are reported at this stage. Apparently fortified by them, he continued in the same strain: “I repeat, in all possible seriousness, that it will question the very existence of the metropolis; and I have no hesitation in declaring that, next to pulling down the whole borough of Southwark, nothing can destroy more certainly than building this proposed bridge at Putney. (Hear, hear.) Allow me, Sir, to ask, and I do so with the more confidence because the answer is evident and clear, How will London be supplied with fuel, with grain, or with hay if this bridge is built? All the correspondences westward will be at one blow destroyed. I repeat this fact boldly, because, as I said before, it is incontrovertible. As a member of this honourable House, I should not venture to speak thus authoritatively unless I had the best possible ground to go upon, and I state, without the least fear of contradiction, that the water at Putney is shallow at ebb, and assuming, as I do, that the correspondences of London require free passage at all times, and knowing, as I do, that if a bridge be built there not even the common wherries will be able to pass the river at low water, I do say that I think the Bill one which only tends to promote a wild and silly scheme, likely to advantage a few speculators, but highly unreasonable and unjust in its character and provisions; because independently of the ruin of the City of London, which I consider inevitable in the event of its success, it will effect an entire change in the position and affairs of the watermen—a change which I have no hesitation in saying will most seriously affect the interests of His Majesty’s Government, and not only the interests of the