London is a world-school in itself. What a man cannot learn there of
arts, sciences, and literature and of all the various phases of
humanity, from the worse or lower than the barbarian, up to the highest
type which "Natural Selection," according to the Darwinian theory, has
developed, he would be unable to learn in any other spot of Earth.
Though young yet mature, and with an active, inquiring brain it cannot
be supposed that Mr. McWatters allowed the grand opportunity for
observation which life in London gave him, to pass profitlessly. Going
from among the stiff Presbyterian forms of life in the north of
Ireland, which must have been galling to a spirit like his, directly to
London with all its social freedoms, the change was a great one for
him, and must have piqued his intelligence to the keenest examination
and scrutiny of his new surroundings.
In London dwell the best as well as the worst people to be found in the
world. The advanced spirits, philosophers and reformers, whom the
civilization of other European countries is not sufficiently developed
to tolerate, seek the asylum of England and make London their home; so,
too, of the criminal classes. The most murderous thieves and burglars
find in London a hiding place and theatre of operations. London, which
was too large even fifty years ago, and was then emphatically one of
those accursed "vampires upon the public weal," as Jefferson declared
all cities to be, has grown marvelously since, and continues to grow to
the wonder of all political economists, who are at a loss to determine
wherefore. But such is the fact, and into this great seething sea of
human life was it that Mr. McWatters plunged in his first essay at
"studying human nature" away from the narrow field of his boyhood's
observations. Whoever resides in London, and acquaints himself with
what is about him, and mingles in the city's strifes, and comes out
unscathed need not fear to trust himself anywhere in the world.