[Illustration: Plan For A New City]
(_To the Editor of The Mirror_.)
The various ages, interests, and tastes which govern the progressive
growth of cities, seem to be irremediable causes of the irregularity
and inconvenience of their final formations or plans--and until this
illustrious age of magnanimous projects and improvements, it would
have been thought ridiculous to offer any radical expedient for a
general improvement in the plans of cities; but _now_ that we see
_new_ cities growing round the metropolis, and new towns planned for
the distant dominions of Great Britain, it seems to be a convenient
season for explaining my notions respecting the general plan of a
city, with regard _only to the directions of the streets_, which after
the repeated consideration of fifty years, I have concluded may, and
ought to be, all straight streets, from _every extremity_, to the
opposite, whatever be the form of the _outermost_ boundary of the city
or town.--These _conclusions_ would most probably have passed off in
silence, but for an accidental fancy arising in my mind, on reading
lately in the Psalms, "_Jerusalem is a city that is in unity with
itself_." This text awakened my dormant ideas on the proper formation
of streets, and anticipating the reunion of the Jews, I began the
accompanying sketch for a "_Holy City_," or "_a New Jerusalem_," which
accounts for the twelve gates according with the original number of
the tribes of Israel, and the ten streets which diverge from each gate
are symbolic of the Ten Commandments, wherein they were commanded to
walk; the twelve circular areas I thought to be properly dedicated to
the Twelve Apostles of Christianity, under the idea that when the
Jews are again called together it will be under the new covenant of
Christianity, so that nothing could (in that case) be more appropriate
than placing the original propagators of it where so many paths led
towards them--and after fixing the place of public worship in the
centre, my orthodoxy ceased to affect my scheme, for want of that
technical knowledge which further detail would require--and having
accomplished my favourite determination of planning a town without
winding streets or crooked lanes. I offer it to the MIRROR as an
amusing novelty for the entertainment of its numerous readers. I think
it would be not inappropriate to call it the Royal City of _Victoria_.