The last chain was in position by the 9th of July, the driving home of the final bolt, followed by the playing of “God Save the King” by a brass band placed in the centre of the bridge, and a triumphal march across it of workmen, amid volleys of cheers from those assembled thousands who seem to have been constantly on the spot for more than two months, and were still there on the following 30th of January, when “this stupendous, pre-eminent, and singularly unique structure,” as an old writer calls it, was opened “at thirty-five minutes after one o’clock a.m., to allow the Royal London and Holyhead Mail coach, conveying the London mail-bags for Dublin, to pass; David Davies, coachman, Wm. Read, guard.” The Mail was followed by the Bangor Pilot, and the London, Oxford and Holyhead “Oxonian”; the Holyhead Road Commissioners, the engineer, and several thousands of persons. The total cost of the bridge and approaches was £120,000; a very moderate sum in comparison with many other bridge-building works, and something less than one-fifth the cost of its huge neighbour, the Britannia railway bridge, two miles distant, down the Straits. Four workmen were killed during its progress. Tolls are still taken at the Bridge. Foot-passengers and cyclists are alike charged a penny each, and flys and cabs a shilling; the charges running up curiously to half-a-crown for a stage coach, and three shillings for a “post-chaise, coach, landau, berlin, or barouche, or other vehicle with four wheels and four horses.” These charges are arranged so as not to press too heavily upon the inhabitants of either side, and one payment frees the bridge for the rest of the day, the payer of one toll being allowed to come and go as often as he pleases up to twelve o’clock, midnight. As a business speculation, if it had been built solely to that end, the Menai Bridge would be pronounced a failure, for the interest on capital originally expended comes, at five per cent., to £6,000 per annum, and the annual income from tolls, returned in 1837 as £1,200, when the coaches were still running, must now be less rather than more. In addition to the original cost, the charge for upkeep must be taken into consideration, although, as the ironwork has not been painted for many years past, that, perhaps, does not bulk very largely. Proposals made by the County Councils of Carnarvon and Anglesey to purchase the bridge from the Government and to open it toll free have failed, the price asked being beyond the resources of those bodies. LII Across this monument of early engineering skill, with roadway swaying and vibrating to the passage of every vehicle, and bird’s-eye views up and down the glittering waterway, Anglesey is entered. On its shores to the right sprawls Menai village, with Beaumaris in the distance, and down beneath, on the left, lies the Isle of Benglas, with the oddly placed church of Llantysilio on it.