§ MR. ALDERMAN LAWRENCEsaid, he would beg to ask the hon. Member for Bath, Whether the Metropolitan Board of Works have made any provision on the exterior of the wall of the Thames Embankment to enable persons who may have fallen into the river and have succeeded in reaching the embankment wall to sustain themselves and be saved from drowning?
§ MR. TITE, in reply, said, the matter had been considered by the Metropolitan Board, but they had failed altogether in contriving any thing such as that suggested in the Question of the hon. Gentleman. In extreme cases the tide rose to twenty-four feet, and in ordinary cases to eighteen feet. It was, therefore, impossible to affix to the exterior of the embankment wall a chain or anything which would enable persons to save themselves in any state of 342 the tide. He believed, however, that there was very little danger of any person falling from the embankment into the river, inasmuch as there was a parapet along the embankment wall. There had for a very considerable length of time been an embankment 900 feet long in front of the Custom House, and there was one 1,500 feet long in front of the Houses of Parliament; but he had never heard of an accident on either. There were steamboat piers and mooring places for wherries at short intervals along the embankment, and life-preservers and other apparatus useful in rescuing drowning persons would be kept at the piers.