LONDON, the capital of England and metropolis of the British empire, is situated on the banks of the Thames, in the counties of Middlesex and Surrey, and within a day's journey of the southern shore of Britain, in latitude 51° 30' 47" north. The name London is traced to a Celtic or British origin, though some doubts are entertained respecting its exact signification. The more common opinion is, that it originates in the words Llin, a pool or lake, and din, a town or harbor for ships. As the Thames at one time spread into a lake on the Surrey side, this signification is sufficiently descriptive of the local position of the metropolis. On the spot now occupied by the city, or more ancient part of the metropolis, which is on the left or northern bank of the Thames, a town had been built and possessed by the Romans eighteen centuries ago, and from that period it has constantly been the seat of an increasing and busy population. Its chief increase and improvement, however, have been since the great fire in 1666, which destroyed a large number of the old streets and public edifices.

The original city was fortified by a wall, which has long since been removed, to allow of an expansion into the adjacent fields; and as the number of houses and streets without the old line of wall has at length greatly exceeded those within, the city, as it is still named, is like a mere kernel in the mass. The extending city has in time formed a connexion with various clusters of population in the neighborhood, including Westminster on the west, and by means of bridges, Southwark and Lambeth on the south. The whole metropolis, reckoning by continuous lines of houses, extends to a length of nearly eight miles, by a breadth of from six to seven, and it is computed that the whole includes at least thirty-five square miles.

The following is the list of districts included within what is usually described as London, with their population in 1831: London within the walls, fifty-seven thousand six hundred and ninety-five; London without the walls, sixty-seven thousand eight hundred and seventy-eight; city of Westminster, two hundred and two thousand and eighty; out-parishes within the bills of mortality, seven hundred and sixty-one thousand three hundred and forty-eight; parishes not within the bills of mortality, two hundred and ninety-three thousand and five hundred and sixty-seven; Southwark, ninety-one thousand and five hundred and one; total, one million four hundred and seventy-four thousand and sixty-nine. London within the walls contains ninety-eight parishes, most of which are very small in size, but at one time were very populous. The practice of living out of town, and of using the dwellings of the city for warehouses, has greatly lessened the population in latter times. Without the walls, there are eleven parishes,

independently of the parishes in Westminster and Southwark. The largest and most populous of the suburban parishes is Marylebone. Adjoining the suburban though really town parishes, there are various country parishes, as Greenwich, Deptford, Camberwell, Clapham, Westham and Stratford, Hammersmith, Hampstead, &c., containing an aggregate population of one hundred and twenty-nine thousand four hundred and eighty; and adding this number to the above one million four hundred and seventy-four thousand and sixty-nine, there was within a compass of about eight miles round London, in 1831, a population of one million five hundred and eighty-four thousand and forty-two, which is probably now increased to about two millions. Within the last fifty years, London has doubled in extent, and at present is rapidly increasing on all sides, particularly on the north, west, and south. In no town in Great Britain are there to be seen so few empty houses. The total assessed rental of the metropolis in 1830 was five millions one hundred and forty-three thousand three hundred and forty pounds, but the real rental was supposed not to be less than seven millions of pounds.

The increase of London to its present enormous size, has been promoted by certain highly favorable circumstances. First, it has for ages been the capital of England, and seat of the legislature and court; and, since the union with Scotland and Ireland, it has become a centre also for these parts of the United Kingdom. Being therefore a point of attraction for the nobility, landed gentry, and other families of opulence from all quarters, a vast increase of population to minister to the tastes and wants of these classes has been the result. While deriving immense advantages from this centralizing principle, London has been equally, if not far more indebted to its excellent situation on the banks of a great navigable river, and in a fine part of the country. As already mentioned, London proper, or the greater part of the town, stands on the left bank of the Thames, on ground rising very gently toward the north; and so even and regular in outline, that among the streets, with few excep tions, the ground is almost flat. On the south bank of the river, the ground is quite level, rather too much so; and on all sides the country appears very little diversified with hills, or anything to interrupt the extension of the buildings. The Thames, that great source of wealth to the metropolis, is an object which generally excites a lively interest among strangers. It is a turbid muddy stream, rising in the interior of the country at the distance of one hundred and thirty-eight miles above London, and entering the sea on the east coast about sixty miles below it. It comes flowing between low, fertile, and village-clad banks, out of a richly ornamented country on the west, aud arriving at the outmost houses of the metropolis, a short way above Westminster Abbey, it pursues a winding course between banks thickly clad with dwelling-houses, warehouses, manufactories, and wharfs, for a space of eight or nine miles, its breadth being here from a third to a quarter of a mile. The tides affect it for fifteen or sixteen miles above the city; but the salt water comes no further than Gravesend, or thirty miles below it. However, such is the volume and depth of water, that vessels of seven or eight hundred tons reach the city on its eastern quarter at Wapping. Most unfortunately, an extended view of this stream is hid from the spectator, there being no quays or promenades along its banks. With the exception of the summit of St. Paul's, the only good points for viewing the river are the bridges, which cross it at convenient distances, and by their length convey an accurate idea of the breadth of the channel. During fine weather, the river is covered with numerous barges or boats of fanciful and light fabric, suitable for quick rowing; and by means of these pleasant conveyances, as well as small steamboats, the Thames forms one of the chief thoroughfares.

London is fortunate in a particularly salubrious situation, whether as respects its relation to the river or its subsoil. A large portion of the entire city is built on gravel, or on a species of clay resting on sand; and by means of capacious underground sewers in all directions, emptying themselves into the Thames, the whole town (with some discreditable exceptions in the humbler and more remote class of streets) is well drained and cleared from superficial impurities. On account of the want of stone here, as in many other places in England, brick is the only material employed in building. London is therefore a brick-built town. To a stranger, it appears to consist of an interminable series of streets of moderate width, composed of dingy red brick houses, which are commonly four stories in height, and seldom less than three. The greater proportion of the dwellings are small. They are mere slips of buildings, containing, in most instances, only two small rooms on the floor, one behind the

other, often with a wide door of communication between, and a wooden stair, with balustrades, from bottom to top of the house. It is only in the more fashionable districts of the town that the houses have sunk areas with railings; in all the business parts, they stand close upon the pavements, so that trade may be conducted with the utmost facility and convenience. Every street possesses a smooth flagged pavement at the sides for foot passengers; while the central parts of the thoroughfares are causewayed with square hard stones, or paved in some other way equally suited to endure the prodigious tear and wear created by the horses and vehicles passing along them. In the central and many other principal streets of London, the ground stories of the houses are generally used as shops or warehouses. When the object is retail traffic, the whole range of front is usually formed into door and window, so as to show goods to the best advantage to the passengers. The exhibition of goods in the London shop windows is one of the greatest wonders of the place. Everything which the appetite can desire, or the fancy imagine, would appear there to be congregated. In every other city there is an evident meagerness in the quantity and assortments; but here there is the most remarkable abundance, and that not in isolated spots, but along the sides of thoroughfares miles in length. In whatever way the eye is turned, this extraordinary amount of mercantile wealth is strikingly observable; even in what appear obscure alleys or courts, the abundance of goods is found to be on a greater scale than in any provincial town.

The flowing of the Thames from west to east through the metropolis, has given a general direction to the lines of streets; the principal thoroughfares are in some measure parallel to the river, with the inferior, or at least shorter streets branching from them. Intersecting the town lengthwise, or from east to west, are two great leading thoroughfares at a short distance from each other, but gradually diverging at their western extremity. One of these routes begins in the eastern environs, near Blackwall, proceeds along Whitechapel, Leadenhall street, Cornhill, Cheapside, Newgate street, Skinner street, Holborn, and Oxford street. The other may be considered as starting at London bridge, and passing up King William street into Cheapside, at the end of which it makes a bend round St. Paul's churchyard, thence proceeds down Ludgate hill, along Fleet street and the Strand to Charing Cross, where it sends a branch off to the left to Whitehall, and another to the right, called Cockspur street, which leads forward into Pall-Mall, and sends a shoot up Regent street into Piccadilly, which proceeds westward to Hyde Park Corner. These are the main lines in the me tropolis, and are among the first traversed by strangers. It will be observed that the main channels unite in Cheapside, which therefore becomes an excessively crowded thoroughfare, particularly in the early part of the day. The main cross branches in the metropolis are-Farringdon street, leading from the opening to Blackfriars bridge, at the foot of Ludgate hill, to Holborn; the Haymarket, leading from Cockspur street; and Regent street, already mentioned. There are several large streets leading northward from the Holborn and Oxford street line. The principal one, in the east, is St. Martin le Grand and Aldersgate street, which communicates with the great north road. It is a matter of general complaint, that there are so few great channels of communication through London both lengthwise and crosswise; for the inferior streets, independently of their complex bearings, are much too narrow for regular traffic. According to the accounts last taken, the entire metropolis contained thirteen thousand nine hundred and thirty-six separate streets, squares, courts, alleys, &c., each with a distinct name. Oxford street, the longest in London, is two thousand three hundred and four yards in length, and numbers two hundred and twenty-five houses on each side.

Without particular reference to municipal distinctions, London may be divided into four principal portions-the city, which is the centre, and where the greatest part of the business is conducted; the east end, in which is the port for shipping; the west end, or Westminster, in which are the palaces of the queen and royal family, the houses of parliament, Westminster abbey, and the residences of the nobility and gentry; the Surrey division, lying on the south side of the Thames, and containing many manufacturing establishments and dwellings of private families. Besides these, the northern suburbs, which include the once detached villages of Stoke Newington, Islington, Hoxton, St. Pancras, Pentonville, Somer's Town, and Paddington, and consist chiefly of private dwellings for the mercantile and higher classes, may be considered a peculiar and distinct division. It is, however, nowhere possible to say exactly where any one division begins or ends. Throughout the vast

compass of the city and suburbs, there is a blending of one division with those contiguous to it. In the business parts there are lines or clusters of neat dwellings, and in the parts devoted to retirement there are seen indications of business. The outskirts on all sides comprise long rows or groups of detached villas, with ornamental flower-plots; and houses of this attractive kind proceed in some directions so far out of town, that there seems no getting beyond them into the country. From the Surrey division there extend southward and westward a great number of these streets of neat private houses, as, for instance, toward Walworth, Kennington, Clapham, Brixton, &c.; and in these directions lie some of the most pleasant spots in the environs of the metropolis. The suburban streets are only macadamised, and possess gravel side paths. We shall now proceed to describe this splendid city in detail.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT OF THE METROPOLIS.

If we draw a line from north to south, running down through Holborn and the Strand, we shall have London tolerably accurately divided, with reference to its grand characteristics of being the central seat of government, legislation, and law, and an emporium for the commerce of the world. On the west side of this line lie the palaces, the houses of parliament, the chief courts of justice, the great govern ment offices, the parks, and the splendid squares and streets which are the external types of the presence of royalty and the court, and all the rank, and wealth, and fashion, which congregate around them. On the east side lie the "city"-a small kernel in a large shell-the docks, and the port, and their enormous accumulations. The boundaries of the "city" have no external indications (except Temple bar, at the end of Fleet street), by which the stranger may be able to mark it out from the mass which hems it round. It may be defined as lying along the Thames from Temple bar to the Tower; from the Tower the boundary-line runs up in an irregular manner (describing a figure somewhat approaching to a semicircle) through the heart of a dense population. The city, therefore, is like a bent bow, of which the Thames is the cord. But though Southwark and Lambeth-each of them having a population sufficient to make a large city-are not within the limits of the " which do not cross the river, they are peculiarly its appendages and adjuncts. Southwark is under the same municipal regulations as the city. Within the city limits lie St. Paul's, the general postoffice, the bank of England, the royal exchange, the East India house, the Mansion-house, and Guildhall.

city,"

Let us station ourselves at the Mansion-house, the palace of the civic monarch, the lord-mayor. Here is a busy and important thoroughfare. Opposite is the massive pile of the bank: beside it the agitating scene of the exchange. There is an incessant throng; and if a bar were laid across the street for five minutes, the throng would swell into a crowd, and from a crowd into a mob. But no riots, no disturbances arise. Peace reigns-if such a term be not inappropriate to a scene where, from morning till night, thnre is a perpetual confusion of sounds.

What salt of life preserves such a body? Does the king of the city, keeping his state within this mansion, hold the reins of government with a firm and vigorous hand, and is his very name a terror to the evil-doers?

In London generally, applying the name to the whole extent of the metropolis, there are about two millions of people. Numbers of this population have grown up, and are growing up, in habits and inclinations which are, unfortunately, more or less opposed to security and order. With such a reflection, it is really marvellous to see how life and property are so completely protected. As to life, it is perfectly secure: for the murders and manslaughters which are produced by sudden outbreaks of drunken or malignant passion, or the aberrations of intellect, are rare in occurrence, and could hardly be restrained by the most perfectly-devised police system. And as to robbery, it scarcely enters into any man's thoughts, when he walks about, that he