couple of basket-women. Here, against the pillars of the piazza, are little tables, with tea and bread and butter for sale; and hawkers thread their way through the lane of human beings, or occupy a position at a corner, proffering cakes and buns. combs, knives, and pocketbooks. And, though it is pleasant to see the tea-tables meeting with ready custom, still the public houses are not without their share of customers. One can almost tolerate the public houses in Smithfield, open all Sunday night and Monday morning, for arduous is the drover's work; but tea and coffee would seem a more fitting refreshment in Covent-Garden market than gin or "purl."

Though Covent Garden is the chief market in London for fruit and vegetables, a very considerable amount is brought to other places. The Borough market and Spitalfields market, in particular, are very well supplied, especially in coarser vege table produce; they are a sort of headquarters for the sale of potatoes. In the neighborhood of the Borough market, also, chiefly in the main street of Southwark, leading from London bridge, and in adjoining streets, the "Hop Dealers" congregate.

The Corn exchange, in Mark lane, is more a national than a metropolitan market. The building is large and commodious. In the interior, which is a quadrangular paved court, surrounded by a colonnade, the corn-factors have binns or desks, for the purpose of containing samples of their grain. Purchasers take out a handful, testing the grain by the usual processes of tasting, feeling, smelling, and weighing; and, when a bargain is concluded, the quantity purchased is disposed of according to instructions.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

MANUFACTURES.-SPITALFIELDS.-THE BOROUGH.-BERMONDSEY

AND TOOLEY STREET.

THERE are no manufactures (using the word in its more confined and modern acceptation) carried on in London, with the exception of that of silk; which at one time might have been considered as almost peculiar to the metropolis. But, as might be naturally expected, from the combination of capital and labor, there are several manufacturing processes conducted on a larger scale than anywhere else in the United Kingdom, or even in the world. Some of these are located in particular quarters of London. Thus, while the manufacture of silk is confined almost exclusively to Spitalfields, nearly all the sugar-refiners have their establishments in Whitechapel ; and the borough of Southwark is noted for dealers in hops, manufacturers of hats, hide and leather merchants, wool-staplers, fellmongers, tanners, dyers, and ropemakers. The manuf ture of earthernware is also carried on to some extent in Lambeth.

Spitalfields is a large and now decayed and squalid portion of London, lying on the northeast side of the "city." This, and Bethnal Green, and a small portion of Whitechapel, may be considered as one district; bounded on the west by Bishopgate street and Shoreditch; on the north by the Hackney road; and on the south by the great eastern outlet of the city, the Whitechapel road, which separates it from the main portion of Whitechapel-a district, in many parts, equally squalid with Spitalfields, but which (from containing many public works, the docks, &c.) does not exhibit such an impoverished and dejected aspect. The Spital fields were begun to be built on during the seventeenth century; and the houses being suburban, were occupied by the silkworkers, being in the vicinity of the city, and yet affording air and light. Toward the close of the seventeenth, and beginning of the eighteenth centu ry, the buildings rapidly increased, until Spitalfields became what it now is, a mass of narrow, inconvenient, and badly-ventilated streets, lanes, courts, and alleys.

The greater part of Spitalfields is a dreary and dismal place; it pains one's heart to walk through it. Dirty and narrow streets; many old tumble-down houses; windows patched with paper, pasteboard, or perhaps the broken pane stuffed out with

an old hat; here and there a green-grocer's or cheesemonger's shop, a potato or coalshed, or a ginshop, whose occupants seem to thrive in the midst of poverty-these are the characteristics of this region. But the squalidness of Spitalfields does not arise from the poverty of the weavers alone. Dr. Kay, an assistant poor-law com missioner, who inspected the district in the month of April, 1837, for the purpose of reporting on the distress then prevailing, says: "The district called Spitalfields contains a large population not concerned with the silk trade. A portion of the casual population of London frequents either the lodging-houses, or the rooms which com monly contain a household, and the rent of which is collected from week to week. The Irish who are employed at the docks, or as bricklayers' laborers and porters throughout the city and town, together with a considerable number of Irish silkweavers, form another element of the population; and English, also employed as por ters and laborers, together with shoemakers, carpenters, cabinet-makers, clockmakers, hawkers, and other similar trades, are mixed with the mass of the weavers. The parishes in which the weaving population is chiefly found are Christchurch, Spitalfields; St. Matthew, Bethnal Green; Mile-End, New Town; St. Leonard, Shoreditch; and St. Mary, Whitechapel."

Leaving Spitalfields, and passing Whitechapel (a visit to Rosemary lane, alias Rag Fair, will bring us back to it), let us cross London bridge, and enter Southwark. High street, the main street of the borough, is on a line with the bridge. Welling.

T

ton street, the new approach to the bridge on the Southwark side, is, like King Wil liam street on the opposite or city side, quite new and spacious; and at first a visiter would not think he had entered the ancient borough of Southwark. But a little higher up, we are in the High street, with its town-hall, and church, and shop-like postoffice; and here we might imagine we were in the main street of a bustling country town. Upward of one half of the hop-dealers of the metropolis have their shops or establishments in the High street; and of the remainder, the greater portion are in the immediate neighborhood. The other occupants of the High street are dealers of every description-woollen and linen drapers, butchers, cheesemongers, hardware merchants, surgeons, chymists, tobacconists, tea-dealers, &c., with sundry wagon-inns, and public houses.

Bermondsey is the name of a parish now included in the parliamentary borough of Southwark, and which lies eastward of the Borough High street and London bridge: the Greenwich railroad passes through it. A great portion of the coarser manufacturing processes of the metropolis are carried on in it, and in its adjoining neighbor, Rotherhithe. They abound with tanneries, tenter grounds, glue and soap manufactories, rope-walks, brimstone and saltpetre works, &c. Berinondsey is not closely built upon, for the manufactures carried on within it require considerable space, and the pungent odors they diffuse invite nobody to reside in the district but those who have an interest in so doing. Yet Bermondsey is a far pleasanter place to walk in than Spitalfields. Industry within it has a rough and even repulsive aspect, but heart-withering poverty has not shed a blight over the whole place. Some of the streets and lanes, especially toward the water-side, are dirty-looking enough; but there are many open spaces, with rows of neat cottages, inhabited by the workmen connected with the establishments in the neighborhood.

Bermondsey street, the main street of the parish, runs up southward from about the centre of Tooley street, at some little distance from, but not quite parallel to, the Borough High street. Besides the usual class of tradesmen, cheesemongers, bakers, butchers, publicans, &c., it is inhabited by wool-staplers, hair-merchants, leather-manufacturers, curriers, vinegar-manufacturers, drysalters, &c. Nearly all the wool-staplers, fell-mongers, and tanners of London are to be found in Bermondsey. Off Bermondsey street there is a large new skin or leather-market, tenanted by leather-factors, skin-merchants, and tanners; and in its immediate vicinity are tan-yards. The reason why the tanneries of Bermondsey are the largest in the empire, may be found in the circumstances of the large capital required, and the ready market and great demand afforded by the extensive operations of Londoncoach-making and book-binding. The manufacture of morocco leather is almost exclusively confined to the tanneries of Bermondsey. Formerly, the hides to be tanned were kept in the pits six, twelve, or eighteen months, and in some instances two years, or even more. But now science has been called in to shorten the time occupied in the process. "The improved process," says Mr. Babbage, “consists in placing the hides with the solution of tan in close vessels, and then exhausting the air. The effect is to withdraw any air which may be contained in the pores of the hides, and to aid capillary attraction by the pressure of the atmosphere in forcing the tan into the interior of the skins. The effect of the additional force thus brought into action can be equal only to one atmosphere; but a further improvement has been made the vessel containing the hides is, after exhaustion, filled up with a solution of tan; a small additional quantity is then injected with a forcing-pump. By these means any degree of pressure may be given which the containing-vessel is capable of supporting; and it has been found that, by employing such a method, the thickest hides can be tanned in six weeks or two months."

Tooley street has a different aspect now from what it had when it was immortalized by Mr. Canning's clever, though somewhat flippant joke, about three tailors in it assembled to draw up a petition to the house of commons, and commencing it with "We, the people of England." There are a few tailors in Tooley street, but they inhabit the lower portion of it, along with the slop-sellers, chandlers, brokers, and other tradesmen. The street runs from London bridge eastward, passing the foot of Bermondsey street; the upper portion of it, adjoining the bridge, has undergone a thorough reconstruction, and is occupied by wharfingers, hop and cidermerchants, wholesale potato-merchants, and other dealers in what may be termed bulky goods. Here the crane and pulley seem never to be idle during the entire day. Drays and carts are continually loading and unloading; sacks, bags, boxes, and bar