The other projectors have specimens principally in the Strand; that near the Golden Cross, being by Mr Skead; that near Coutts’s Bank, Mr Saunders; at St Giles’s Church, in Holborn, Mr Rankin; and in the city, at Gracechurch Street, Cornhill, and the Poultry, Mr Cary.  The Poultry is a short space lying between Cheapside and the Mansion-house, consisting altogether of only 378 square yards.  It lies in a hollow, as if on purpose to receive the river of mud which rolls its majestic course from the causeway on each side.  The traffic on it, though not fast, is perpetual, and the system from the first was faulty.  In addition to these drawbacks, its cleansing was totally neglected; and on all these accounts, it offered an excellent point of attack to any person who determined to signalize himself by preaching a crusade against wood.  Preachers, thank heaven! are seldom wanted; and on this occasion the part of Peter the Hermit was undertaken by Peter the Knight; for our old acquaintance, the opponent of causeways, the sworn enemy to granite, the favourer of Macadam, had worn the chain of office; had had his ears tickled for a whole year by the magic word, my lord, was as much of a knight as Sir Amadis de Gaul, and much more of an alderman; had been a great dispenser of justice, and sometimes a dispenser with law; had made himself a name, before which that of the Curtises and Waithmans grew pale; and, above all, was at that very moment in want of a grievance.  Sir Peter Laurie gave notice of a motion on the subject of the Poultry.  People began to think something had gone wrong with the chickens, or that Sir Robert had laid a high duty on foreign eggs.  The alarm spread into Norfolk, and affected the price of turkeys.  Bantams fell in value, and barn-door fowls were a drug.  In the midst of all these fears, it began to be whispered about, that if any chickens were concerned in the motion, it was Cary’s chickens; and that the attack, though nominally on the hen-roost, was in reality on the wood.  It was now the depth of winter; snowy showers were succeeded by biting frosts; the very smoothness of the surface of the wooden pavement was against it; for as no steps were taken to prevent slipperiness, by cleansing or sanding the street—­or better still, perhaps, by roughing the horses’ shoes, many tumbles took place on this doomed little portion of the road; and some of the city police, having probably, in the present high state of English morals, little else to do, were employed to count the falls.  Armed with a list of these accidents, which grew in exact proportion to the number of people who saw them—­(for instance, if three people separately reported, “a grey horse down in the Poultry,” it did duty for three grey horses)—­Sir Peter opened the business of the day, at a meeting of the Commissioners of Sewers for the City of London, on the 14th of February 1843.  Mr Alderman Gibbs was in the chair.  Sir Peter, on this occasion, transcended his usual efforts; he was inspired with the genius of his subject, and was as great a specimen of slip-slop as the streets themselves.  He requested a petition to be read, signed by a Mr Gray, and a considerable number of other jobmasters and livery stable-keepers, against wood pavement; and, as it formed the text on which he spoke, we quote it entire:—­