The new bridge which crosses the Thames midway between Vauxhall and Lambeth bridges has been officially inspected and declared safe for the heaviest traffic, and Vauxhall Bridge has accordingly been closed. In a few weeks its demolition will be commenced. Then, five years later, when a new Vauxhall Bridge has bee erected in its place, Lambeth Bridge will in its turn be destroyed and rebuilt. And then, after ten years of life, the temporary bridge which now opens up to southern London a direct way to the Gallery of British Art, Mr, Tate's splendid gift to the nation, will' be broken up. With all our boasted skill in engineering'we do not build bridges to last as they did of old. Vauxhall Bridge, now condemned, is less than niner years old, and Lambeth Bridge—whicl was originally built by private enterprise—will be little more than forty years old when its time comes to perish. From west to east of London there is hot now a single bridge over the Thames which is a century old and yet old London Bridge, though built on badly constructed piers, and though for centuries it bore the weight of a double row of houses, was quite six hundred years old when it was pulled down some seventy-five years ago. It had been cobbled and patched many a time, it is true; but was substantially the same structure which Peter of Colechurch built at the beginning of the thirteenth century. at. CURZON'S SEAT.
Another serious blow has been dealt at the Government in the result of the by-election for the Southport Division of Lineashire—tho seat vacated by Mr. Curzon on his appointment as Viceroy of India. Sir Herbert Naylor-Leyland, who, it may be remembered, received a baronetcy from Lord Rosebery, some three years ago, as a reward for his apostasy to Home Rule, has won the seat for the Liberals with an overturn of more than a thousand votes. The striking feature about the lection is that the Chairman of the Liberal Unionist Association publicly announced his intention to vote for the Liberal candidate. He has come to the conclusion that Home Rule is no longer a question of practical politics, and he therefore feels at liberty to vote for the candidate with whose policy on other questions he, as a Liberal, is in agreement. There can be <no doubt that his influence was sufficient to carry a good many other Liberal Unionist votes with him; but the general opinion and almost beyond doubt the correct opinion, is that the loss of the seat is due to dissatisfaction with Lord Solisbury's foreign policy, especially his squeezability in regard to China—a dissatisfaction which is felt perhaps, more keenly among Conservatives than among Liberal Unionists. This division of Lancashire, too, is a part of the country in which the leasehold system has pressed Ji with exceptional hardness upon tenants and there is no doubt that Sir Herbert Naylor-Leyland's active support of the principle of leasehold enfranchisement gained him many adherents.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.