§ EARL GROSVENORsaid, he would also beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works, Whether he has any plan for making a road across Hyde Park, to connect Paddington 983 with Brompton; and, if so, whether there is any intention of carrying it out?
MR. COWPERsaid, he felt very much the great convenience it would afford to a large portion of the inhabitants of this Metropolis to have a communication opened between the north and the south sides of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens; but the noble Lord, he trusted, would agree with him that it would be undesirable to introduce any traffic in the Park, which would interfere with that primary object of recreation and amusement to which the Sovereign had devoted the parks; and, therefore, he thought that the way in which the convenience of the people of Brompton on the one side and those of Paddington on the other could best be served, without an unnecessary interference with the comfort of the public generally, would be by making an underground road or tunnel. At the commencement of the Session notice was given of a private Bill, by which the Metropolitan Railway Company proposed to carry a tunnel under Kensington Gardens, and if that Bill had been proceeded with an opportunity would have been afforded of supplying an underground carriage road in addition to a railway. That Bill, however, had not been pursued, and at the present moment he did not exactly see his way to attaining the object which the noble Lord desired without unduly interfering with the amusement and recreation of those who were in the habit of frequenting Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens.