is as little understood as Sanscrit itself. At any moment I like I can
rush away from all European civilisation, and sit in a little room and
smoke opium with the heathen Chinee—whose smile all the while is
“childlike and bland”—as if I were thousands of miles away. On the other
side of St. Paul’s I have supped with hundreds of thieves at a time, who
carry on their work as if there was no such institution as that of the
police; I have listened to the story of the crowded lodgers, and I can
believe anything you like to tell me of the wealth, of the poverty, of
the virtue, of the vice of London. People say the metropolis has seven
thousand miles of streets. I have no doubt it has. People say it has on
Sunday sixty miles of shops open, and they may be right; at least I have
neither the time nor the inclination to test these figures. It also
rejoices, I hear, in as many public-houses as, if set in a line, would
reach from Charing Cross to Portsmouth. The people of London read or
write in the course of a year as many as two hundred and forty millions
of letters. All these letters are written, all these public-houses
supported, all these streets lined with houses inhabited by men who more
or less are connected with the city. It is there they live, if they
sleep fifty miles away, and it is a hard life some of them have
assuredly. A little while ago a poor woman was charged with pawning
shirts entrusted to her to make by an East-End merchant clothier. The
woman pleaded that her children were so hungry that she was tempted to
pawn some of the work in the hope of being able to redeem it by the time
the whole was completed. The work was machine-sewing. She hired the
machine at half-a-crown a week, and was paid by the prosecutor a shilling
a dozen for his shirts.
“Nonsense,” said the magistrate; “that is only a penny each.”
“And that is all it is, sir,” said the poor woman.
“And you have to work a long day to make twelve. And is it really a
fact,” said the magistrate, turning to the merchant clothier, “that this
kind of work has fallen into such a deplorable condition that you can get
it done at so poor a rate?”
“Your worship,” was the reply, “if I wanted a hundred hands at the price
I could get ’em by holding up my finger.”
Nowhere does life run to such extremes;—nowhere is there such pauperism
as in London; nowhere is there such wealth; nowhere does man lift a
sublimer face to the stars; nowhere does he fall so low. In short,
London may be described as “one of those things which no fellah can
understand.”
In beauty London now may almost vie with fair bewitching Paris. In all
other respects it leaves it far behind. It is the brain of England, the
seat of English rule, whence issue laws which are obeyed in four quarters
of the globe, and the fountain of thought which agitates and rules the
world. London is the head-quarters of commerce. Tyre and Sidon and
Carthage, the republics of Italy, the great cities of the Hanseatic
Confederation, Flemish Ghent or Bruges, or Antwerp or busy Amsterdam,
never in their canals, and harbours, and rivers, sheltered such burdened
argosies; in their streets never saw such wealthy merchants; in their
warehouses never garnered up such stores of corn and wine and oil.
London prices rule the globe, and are quoted on every exchange. It is a
city of contrasts. It has its quarters where pale-eyed students live and
move and have their being, and factories where the only thought is how
best to drag out a dull mechanical life. It has its underground cells
where misers hide their ill-gotten gains, and its abodes of fashion and
dissipation where the thoughtless and the gay dance and drink and sing,
as if time past taught them no lesson, and as if time to come could have
no terrors for them. It is a city of saints and sinners, where God and
Mammon have each their temples and their crowds of worshippers. Here lie
in wait the traffickers in men’s bodies and souls; and here live those
whose most anxious care is how best to assuage the pangs of poverty, how
best to cure the delirium of disease, how most successfully to reclaim
the fallen and the prodigal, how most assiduously to guard the young from
the grasp of the destroyer—how, in the language of the poet, to “allure
to brighter worlds and lead the way.” If there be a fire in Chicago, a
famine in India, a tornado in the West Indies, a wail of distress from
the North or the South, or the East or the West, London is the first city
to send succour and relief.
In speaking of London we sometimes mean Smaller London and sometimes
Greater London. To avoid confusion we must clearly understand what is
meant by each. Smaller London comprises 28 Superintendent Registrars’
Districts, 20 of them being in Middlesex, 5 in Surrey, and 3 in Kent;
viz. Kensington, Chelsea, St. George, Hanover Square, Westminster,
Marylebone, Hampstead, Pancras, Islington, Hackney, St. Giles, Strand,
Holborn, London City, Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, Whitechapel, St. George
in the East, Stepney, Mile End and Poplar in Middlesex; St. Saviour,
Southwark, St. Olave, Southwark, Lambeth, Wandsworth, and Camberwell in
Surrey; and Greenwich, Lewisham, and Woolwich in Kent. It had an
estimated population in the middle of 1878 of 3,577,304. Greater London
comprises in addition to the above 14 Superintendent Registrars’
Districts, 6 of them being in Middlesex, 4 in Surrey, 2 in Kent, and 2 in
Essex; viz. Staines, Uxbridge, Brentford, Hendon, Barnet, and Edmonton in
Middlesex; Epsom, Croydon, Kingston, and Richmond in Surrey; Bromley and
Bexley in Kent; and West Ham and Romford in Essex. It comprises the
whole of Middlesex, and such parishes of Surrey, Kent, Essex, and Herts
as are within 12 miles of Charing Cross. These additional districts had
an estimated population of 872,711 in the middle of the year 1878, so
that Greater London has therefore at the present time a population of
4,450,015. The population of the United Kingdom in the middle of 1878
was estimated at 33,881,966. Greater London had therefore considerably
more than an eighth of the population of Great Britain and Ireland, and
more than a sixth of the population of England and Wales. This large
population is constantly and rapidly increasing; the estimated increase
in 1878 being 82,468. It is important to note that the increase is not
equal in all parts. The population is decreasing within the City; within
Smaller London it goes on increasing but at a decreasing rate, and in the
outer ring the population increases steadily at an increasing rate. The
population of the outer circle has increased more than 50 per cent. in
the last ten years.
Even in its narrowest definition—as the small plot of ground between
Temple Bar and Aldgate pump—what a history London has! Of what scenes of
glory and of shame it has been the theatre! What brave men and lovely
women have played their part, heroic or the reverse, upon its stage!
When the City’s greatest architect dug deep into the earth to build the
foundations of his matchless cathedral, he laid bare the remains of
nations and generations that one after another had held the City as its
own. First he uncovered the graves of the early medieval Londoners; then
he came to the remains of our Saxon forefathers, of Ethelbert and St.
Augustine; next were found the remains of Romans and ancient Britons, and
last of all were found the mouldering remains of those who knew not Cæsar
and the city they call Rome. Again, the London of Victoria faintly
resembles the London of Queen Anne, as faintly perhaps as does the
Jerusalem of to-day represent the city in which our Saviour dwelt. No
wonder that our old chroniclers romanced not a little, and that many of
them did believe, as Geoffrey of Monmouth writes, that London was founded
by Brute, a descendant of Eneas, eleven hundred years before Christ, and
that he called it Troy Novant, whence came the name of the people to be
called Trinobantes. Equally widespread and equally unfounded was the
belief that from London were shipped away eleven thousand—some say
seventy thousand—British virgins (as an admirer of the virtues of my
countrywomen I stick to the highest figure)—whose bones may yet be seen
in Cologne—to the British warriors compelled to settle in Armorica. What
is clear, however, is that in London Diana had a temple, that the Saxons
won the city from the Britons, that the Tower of London is one of the
oldest buildings in Christendom, and that here Roman and Dane, and Saxon
and Norman have all more or less left their mark. Our early monarchs
trembled as they saw how the great city grew. When that slobbering James
came to the throne—whom his courtiers denominated the British Solomon—of
whom bishops and archbishops testified that his language was that of
inspiration, he exclaimed, “England will shortly be London, and London
England,” as he saw how people were adding house to house and street to
street, and flocking to them from all parts of England and Scotland; yet
the London of the Stuarts, neither in extent or magnificence or wealth,
bore the faintest resemblance to the London of to-day.
Londoners are well looked after in the matter of taxes. The ratable
value of the metropolis, or rather the district of the Metropolitan
Board, is £23,960,109. Last year it raised in this way £477,835. The
School Board rate was something similar. Besides, there is a sewer rate
of twopence in the pound; a paving, watering, etc. rate of probably
ninepence; a lighting rate of threepence; then there are rates to pay
interest on the debts of extinct paving trusts; a rate for baths and
wash-houses, police rate and county rate, making a total of almost five
shillings and sixpence in the pound on the value of a house. While it
has an excess of beer-shops, gin-palaces, and music-halls, it has a great
deficiency as regards church and chapel accommodation. In Inner London
it is calculated 955,060 sittings are required. In Larger London the
deficiency, it is estimated, is much more.
The number of police, according to the last return, was 10,336 in the
metropolis, showing an increase of 0.5 per cent. over last year; and in
the City 798, being seven over the last returns. The metropolitan police
are in the proportion of one for every 397 of the population of the
metropolitan police district; the City police of one for every 93 of the
population, as enumerated on the night of the census of 1871. The cost
of the metropolitan police was £1,077,399, of which 39.9 per cent. was
contributed from public revenue; the cost of the City police was £85,231,
towards which no contribution was made. From the criminal returns it
appears that for the metropolitan police district, with the City, the
number of known thieves and depredators, receivers of stolen goods, and
suspected persons, was 2,715, or one in 1,431 of the population, showing
an increase of 3.9 per cent. on the returns of the previous year. The
rule which has been followed now for 14 years, that persons known to have
been living honestly for one year at least subsequently to their
discharge after any conviction, should not be returned in the class of
known thieves and depredators, has been adhered to. The return of houses
of bad character in the metropolis, exclusive of those of ill-fame and of
those returned to Parliament under the Contagious Act, is 215, of which
66 are houses of receivers of stolen goods, showing a decrease of 22 in
the year. The total number of cases tried at the Central Criminal Court
was 10,151. From a classification of offences determined summarily we
learn that there were 5,622 persons proceeded against in the City, of
whom 1,093 were discharged, and the remainder convicted or otherwise
dealt with. There were 191 offences against the Adulteration of Food Act
in the metropolitan police district, 7 in the City; 5,874 against the
Elementary Education Act, none in the City; 1,234 cases of cruelty to
animals in the metropolitan district, 823 in the City; 33,520 persons
were drunk and disorderly in the metropolitan district, 431 in the City,
being an increase over the numbers for the last year of about 1,000 in
the first instance, and 35 in the second.
From the prison returns we gather that the total of commitments to
Newgate for the year ended September 29th, 1877, was 1,394 males, and 218
females, being in the case of the males a reasonable decrease from the
last year’s numbers; to Holloway, 1,896 males, 281 females, the latter
returns including 841 males and 45 females to the civil side for debt.
Under the heading of expenses we have £127 19s. for new buildings,
alterations, etc., in Newgate; and in Holloway, £199; ordinary repairs in
Newgate came to £149 11s. 4d., rent, rates, taxes, etc., £121 7s.;
Holloway repairs, £121 4s. 5d., rent and taxes, £74 2s. 11d., with
various other charges, making a total of expenses at Newgate of £6,514
5s. 3d.; Holloway, £10,314 9s. 9d. From the table of funds charged with
prison expenses we learn that at Holloway the net profit of prisoners’
labour was £2,038 1s. 9d. The county or liberty rates contributed £83
16s. 8d. to Newgate; the City rate was £5,632 1s. 3d., the latter rate
was, in respect to Holloway, £6,239 5s. The Treasury paid £347 0s. 9d.,
proportion of the charge for convicted prisoners at Newgate, £1,438 17s.
6d. for those at Holloway.
The charitable contributions of England are to-day in excess of what the
whole revenue of the British Crown was under the Stuarts, only two
hundred years ago; over £600,000 per annum is derived from all such
sources by the medical charities of London alone; more than 1,200,000
persons, exclusive of paupers, are annually recipient of assistance from
those medical charities.
In other ways also is London truly wonderful. It seems as if the earth
toiled and moiled to simply supply her wants. Sail up the Baltic and ask
whither those vessels laden with tallow and corn and flax are steering,
and the answer is, The Thames. Float down the Mediterranean, and the
reply to the question would be still the same. Ascend the grand rivers
of the New World, and the destination of the stores of beef and cheese
and wheat is still the same. Canada supplies us with our deals; America
with half our food; Australia with our wool; the Cape with our diamonds;
the Brazils with coffee. Havannah sends her choice cigars, China her
teas, Japan her lacquered and ingenious ware, Italy her silks; and from
the vineyards of France, or the green hills that border the Rhine and the
Moselle, we are supposed to draw our supplies of sparkling wine. Spain
sends her sherry, Portugal her port. For us the spicy breezes blow soft
on Ceylon’s isle, the turtle fattens languidly under burning suns, the
whale wallows in the trough of frozen seas, the elephant feeds in African
jungles, and the ostrich darts as an arrow across the plain. In the
country village, in the busy mill, on sea or on land, it is the thought
of London that fires the brain and fills the heart, and nerves the muscle
and relieves the tedium of nightly or daily toil. As Cowper writes:
Where has commerce such a mart,
So rich, so thronged, so drained, and so supplied,
As London—opulent, enlarged, and still
Increasing London? Babylon of old
Not more the glory of the earth than she,
A more accomplished world’s chief glory now.
It is not our province to speculate as to the future. There are men who
tell us that Babylon is about to fall, and that it is time for the elect
to be off. It may be so. Time, the destroyer, has seen many a noble
city rise, and flourish, and pass away; but London, it must be admitted
nevertheless, never more truly in any sense deserves the epitaph of
“wonderful” than at the present time.