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" intention of widening and improving the Bridge in tho manner
" proposed.
" The General Session of the Peace being thus tho only autho"
rity empowered to alter and improve the Lewi-ham Bridge, your
" Memorialists submit that they should assume the exclusive re"
sponsibility of improving or rebuilding tho same.
"As evidence of tho inadequacy of the Bridge to the very
" large and increasing trnffic on tho road, your Memorialists beg to
" call attention to tho following facts :—
" 1. The Bridge is only twenty-two feet six inches in width
" between the parapet walls, including tho footpath
" which it had on one Bide only; and it has a steep
" ascent over it, tho inclination being one in twenty.
"2. Such was the danger and inconvinience thus occasioned
" to the public that your Memorialists, some years since,
" caused tho entire width of tho Bridge to be made a
" carriage-way, and had a temporary wooden footway
" across tho river constructed on ono side of it for the
'1 safety and convenience of foot passengers.
" 3. The traffic having on two recent occasions been taken
" by officers employed for tho purposo, was ascertained
" to be about 1,460 vehicles, and 6,400 foot passengers
"within tho twelve hours of each day; nearly 200
" vehicles and about 700 foot passengers occasionally
" passing over the bridge in a single hour.
" 4. The danger necessarily consequent upon so narrow and
" steep a bridge and such heavy traffic is rendered still
" greater by a railway bridge passing over the road
" close to it.
" With reference to tho claim of the inhabitants of Lewisham
" and the adjoining Parishes upon the County llate for the required
" expenditure, your Memorialists beg to remind the Court of General
" Session:
" 1. That the Bridge is one of the two old main—New Cross
" Turnpike—roads connecting the County with the
" the Metropolis, and that by the turnpike abolition
" such roads, of which six miles are in the Parish of
" Lewisham, are maintained at the sole cost of the
" Parishes through which they pass, in relief of the
" inhabitants of the County using the same.