In 1881, when the last official census was taken, the population amounted to 4,766,661. The normal annual increase can hardly have been less than 100,000 per year; hence in 1890, Larger London almost certainly includes within her borders over 5,600,000 human beings. These figures form a hieroglyph of which we are apt to think we know the meaning, but which can never be grasped in any complete sense by the mind. And hence to make it easier the census students break it up into some of its many component parts. They tell us, for example, that Kensington alone-a mere drop in the ocean of London life-contains more people than Bradford, York, and Scarborough combined; that the total inhabitants of Newcastle might be dropped down in St. George's, Hanover Square, and yet fall some thousands short of the present population; that the Tower Hamlets with its 500,000 inhabitants could fill to overflowing ten such towns as Reading, and that you could fill four or five New Yorks with London's millions.

Never before in the life of the globe have so many human beings been compressed into so small a space. Larger London—that is, speaking roughly, a circle having Charing Cross for the centre, and a circumference running through the counties of Middlesex, Hertford, Essex, Kent and Surrey, at a distance of fifteen miles from Trafalgar Square-includes six hundred and ninety square miles. This area, as mapped, really forms a square of over twenty-six miles each way. In walking or driving these twenty-six miles, whether from east to west, or from north to south, for much the larger half of the distance the appearances presented are those of a crowded city. The wayfarer who starts from Stratford, in the east, may walk with hardly a break in the streets of houses, through Whitechapel, the City, the West End, Kensington and Hammersmith-through twelve or fourteen miles of houses.

Hounslow is for all

Then again, London is not one, but many towns. practical purposes of life, as far away from, and as little known to the dwellers in, say, Blackheath or Aldgate, as Rome or New York. Except for an occasional trip to satisfy a passing curiosity, the ordinary inhabitant of Belgravia knows no more of Deptford or Wapping than he does of Fiji or New Guinea. Myriads of people, even with the enormously increased means of locomotion, but rarely or never leave those districts of London in which their work is situated and in which they reside. And here we touch another peculiarity of this great London Certainly half a million people— according to some estimates 800,000-daily leave their homes in various parts of the suburbs, and ply their avocations within Lesser London, and for the most part within what is known as the City.

The way in which London has become a kind of maelström, drawing into its vortex the young and vigorous, the broken-down and criminal, the professional and scientific and literary classes, no less than the cultured and wealthy 'retired' classes, is shown by the fact that only 2,401,955 persons

out of the 3,816,483 residing in Inner London in 1881 were born there. That is, no less than 1,414,528 were not born in London. Out of these— we give only round numbers-Ireland sent 80,000, Scotland 49,000, the county of Norfolk 49,000, Somerset 43,000, and the foreigners reach the large total of 60,000. In the last number are included no less than 21,000 Germans and 8,000 French.

But with facts and statistics of one kind or another, not only this book but a dozen more like it could easily be filled. And our object is not to collect these, but to present the reader with some pen and pencil pictures of London life, London buildings, and London history. Undoubtedly the best way to see London is to walk about it, just as the worst way to accomplish this object is to employ the railways, most of which go either underground, where nothing can be seen, or overground, whence only acres of roofs with smoking chimney-tops, and the most prominent towers and steeples can be observed. The hansom cab is a speedy and comfortable vehicle, and its popularity is shown by the fact that London possesses nearly 7,000 of them, as against 4,000 of its slower brother, the 'four-wheeler.' But in fine weather not only the cheapest but the best vehicle for London sight-seeing is the omnibus, and the best point of vantage thereon is the top. The old-fashioned style, which admitted of two passengers sitting on each side of the driver, and the roof of which could only be reached by a series of gymnastic exercises upon a perpendicular set of narrow steps, is being fast superseded by those which have cross-seats outside, all facing the driver, on the top, and which are reached by an easy staircase. For this reason it has come to pass that whereas a few years since it was paratively rare to see a lady outside an omnibus, now the fair sex so frequent that part, that Punch's joke is hardly far-fetched when it represents the conductor asking the ladies above him whether one of them will consent to ride inside 'to oblige a gentleman.'

Between 2,000 and 3,000 omnibuses ply along the main thoroughfares. Competition has greatly lowered the fares, and also improved the accommodation. This multitude of omnibuses not only renders it possible to ride through most of the leading streets, at the same time doing much to congest the traffic, but it also gives the traveller a ready and pleasant way of visiting not only the nearer suburbs, such as Highgate, Hampstead, Clapham and Hammersmith, but also more distant favourite places of resort, like Richmond and Hampton Court. The stranger who gazes for the first time upon the hurrying crowds of Cheapside, Oxford Street, Whitechapel Road or the Borough, and the old resident who for the thousandth time studies the ever-varying, ever-fascinating panorama of London street life, cannot find and cannot reasonably desire a better point of view than that afforded by the top of a London omnibus.

It is in this way that we propose to get our first impressions of the

great City. In the succeeding chapters no less than in this we shall limit our observations for the most part to the area lying between Westminster and the Tower in one direction, and the Angel, Islington, and the Elephant and Castle in the other. This area embraces what may be considered as London's heart. Within it lies the tiny area of Roman London, the larger Saxon, and the still larger Tudor capital. Here are to be found the centres and springs of not only London but Imperial Government, the home of all civic authority and rule, the source and fountain-head of most of the businesses of the richest city in the world. Here are to be seen the palaces of England's monarchs, the stately house of her Parliament, the mighty Cathedral of her patron saint, and the ancient Abbey wherein are interred so many of her illustrious dead. Within these somewhat narrow limits are to be seen the greatest extremes and contrasts that life can afford. Hard by mansions in which every luxury is enjoyed and upon the furnishing of which a fortune has been expended, are to be found rooms and tenements in which human beings live a life utterly unfavourable to moral and spiritual welfare. And go where you will in this area for a large part of the twenty-four hours in the day, you will find abundant evidence of active life, hard work, luxurious idleness, outward splendour, mingled with, alas! far too many traces of suffering, poverty, vicious indulgence and rampant vice. Heinrich Heine's well-known words still remain in many respects as true as when he wrote them: I have seen the greatest wonder which the world can show to the astonished spirit. I have seen it, and am still astonished-for ever will there remain fixed indelibly on my memory the stone forests of houses, amid which flows the rushing stream of faces of living men with all their varied passions, and all their terrible impulses of love, of hunger, and of hatred.'

Perhaps the best starting-point for any journey of inspection within this central London is that shown in the engraving on page 12. It represents the open space in front of the Mansion House, a spot which during the hours of daylight is thronged with foot and carriage traffic. Upon it converge Cheapside, one of the most ancient thoroughfares in the capital; Queen Victoria Street, one of the newest and handsomest of recent streets; Princes Street and Threadneedle Street, names which at once bring up associations connected with the greatest financial transactions of the modern world; Cornhill, Lombard Street, King William Street, and Walbrook, names which enshrine chapters of the ancient and modern history of the capital. In the background of the engraving stands the Royal Exchange, the home and the outward symbol of London's commerce. It was founded in Elizabeth's reign by Sir Thomas Gresham, and opened by the Queen in 1571, and destroyed in the Great Fire. It was rebuilt by Wren, who-had only the perverse and short-sighted men of authority in his day allowed itwould have caused all the principal streets of London to branch out from it.

In 1838 fire once again ruined it, and the present structure was erected and opened in 1844. Opposite the Exchange stands the Bank of England, which will be referred to in some detail later on. The engraving on page 12 admirably represents the variety of traffic here to be seen.

From this point omnibuses will convey the wayfarer to almost every part of London. Passing up Cornhill, a few minutes' ride will bring us to the congested districts of Whitechapel, Spitalfields, or Bethnal Green. Here are many of the saddest and some of the noblest features of the great City's life. While by no means confined to the East End, yet here are to

be seen more of struggling life, of poverty, and of crime, than in other districts. Hundreds of thousands of human beings here spend their lives, dependent upon a weekly wage earned by the hardest toil, and which when it comes in regularly only just suffices to keep them out of the clutches of hunger. It is here that the sweater's victims toil, and here many of the labouring class, who leave the country in the hope of finding London an Eldorado, sink down into lives of hopeless drudgery. And yet in no part of London is Christian philanthropy more active, and nowhere else are the results more cheering. The great question of so housing these teeming

C

myriads that at any rate it shall be possible to observe the commonest decencies of life, is coming more and more to the front. Much has been done in the way of erecting artizan dwellings, but much yet remains to be done. The public conscience is, however, aroused, and men of all grades and of all shades of religious opinion are beginning to realise that in this sense they are their brother's keeper.

It perhaps cannot be denied that there has been too much indiscriminate charity, and that benevolent effort has not always followed the wisest advice; but it is incontestable that never before in the world's history have so many devoted Christian men and women been working at the cost of self-sacrifice, money, and even health itself, for the bodily and spiritual welfare of their fellows as are to be found to-day in the east of London. Institutions like Mr. Charrington's Hall and the People's Palace have been founded. Churches

and chapels and mission halls abound. Devoted clergymen, both of the Established and Nonconformist churches, city missionaries, nurses, and a multitude of voluntary workers of both sexes, are proving to-day that the New Testament is a living force. They live among these people, they give of their thought and sympathy and time and strength to the utmost of their power, from no desire, and from no possibility of reward here, but because a time will come, they believe, when the Saviour to whom they have consecrated their lives will say, 'Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.'

But to the average Londoner-that is, to the man who spends the working hours of the day in the bank, or counting-house, or warehouse, and then at night rushes off as fast as omnibus or train will carry him to the suburbs-the East End is as little known as Kamschatka. He never goes there. He knows that such a region exists, but his acquaintance with it is limited to what the newspaper reports about its dock strikes and labour troubles, about some crime more than usually atrocious, or about the efforts to help on its progress efforts which not unfrequently he helps neither by his sympathy nor by his contributions. And yet no London scenes are more interesting or more full of matter for careful reflection than a walk by day through the London Docks, or a walk by night along Whitechapel Road or Ratcliff Highway. In the East End may be seen an abundant variety of the type of street Arab, and here also may be seen the result of the recent development in London of the education movement in the numerous board schools. Over the whole of Larger London there are to be seen these buildings, so full of hope and future promise to the State, and not