hay, vegetables, fish, and other principal articles of consumption. The
meat-markets are of various kinds—one for live animals, others for
carcases in bulk, and others for the retail of meat; some, also, are for
pork, and others principally for fowls. The _New Cattle Market_,
Copenhagen Fields, near Pentonville, built, in 1854, to replace old
_Smithfield Market_, covers nearly 30 acres, and, with outbuildings,
slaughterhouses, &c., cost the City Corporation about £400,000. It is
the finest live stock market in the kingdom. The present _Smithfield
Market_, near the Holborn Viaduct, for dead meat and poultry, is a
splendid building, 625 feet long, 240 feet wide, and 30 feet high. Wide
roads on its north, east, and west sides, accommodate its special
traffic. A carriage road runs right through it from north to south, with
spacious and well ventilating avenues radiating from it. There are in
this market no less than 100,000 feet of available space. It has cost
upwards of £180,000 already. There are underground communication with
several railways, to bring in, right under the market, meat and poultry
from the country, and meat from the slaughterhouses of the Copenhagen
Fields Cattle Market. _Newgate Market_, as a market, no longer exists.
_Leadenhall Market_ is a _depôt_ for meat and poultry. At Whitechapel
there is a meat market also. The minor meat markets require no special
note here. _Billingsgate_, the principal fish market of London, near the
Custom House, was greatly extended and improved in 1849. It is well
worth visiting any morning throughout the year, save Sunday, at five
o’clock. Ladies, however, will not care to encounter its noise, bustle,
and unsavoury odours. The fish arriving in steamers, smacks, and boats
from the coast or more distant seas, are consigned to salesmen who,
during the early market hours, deal extensively with the retail
fishmongers from all parts of London. The inferior fish are bought by
the costermongers, or street-dealers. When particular fish are in a
prime state, or very scarce, there are wealthy persons who will pay
enormously for the rarity; hence a struggle between the boats to reach
the market early. At times, so many boats come laden with the same kind
of fish as to produce a glut; and instead of being sold at a high price,
as is usually the case, the fish are then retailed for a mere trifle.
Fish is now brought largely to London by railway, from various ports on
the east and south coasts. The yearly sale of fish at Billingsgate has
been estimated at so high a sum as £2,000,000.
_Covent Garden Market_ (connected by Southampton Street with the Strand)
is the great vegetable, fruit, and flower market. This spot, which is
exceedingly central to the metropolis, was once the garden to the abbey
and convent of Westminster: hence the name _Convent_ or _Covent_. At the
suppression of the religious houses in Henry VIII.’s reign, it devolved
to the Crown. Edward VI. gave it to the Duke of Somerset; on his
attainder it was granted to the Earl of Bedford; and in the Russell
family it has since remained. From a design of Inigo Jones, it was
intended to have surrounded it with a colonnade; but the north and a part
of the east sides only were completed. The fruit and vegetable markets
were rebuilt in 1829–30. The west side is occupied by the parish church
of St. Paul’s, noticeable for its massive roof and portico. Butler,
author of _Hudibras_, lies in its graveyard, without a stone to mark the
spot. In 1721, however, a cenotaph was erected in his honour in
Westminster Abbey. The election of members to serve in Parliament for
the city of Westminster was held in front of this church: the hustings
for receiving the votes being temporary buildings. The south side is
occupied by a row of brick dwellings. Within the square thus enclosed
fruit and vegetables of the best quality are exposed for sale. A large
paved space surrounding the interior square is occupied by the
market-gardeners, who, as early as four or five in the morning, have
carted the produce of their grounds, and wait to dispose of it to dealers
in fruit and vegetables residing in different parts of London; any
remainder is sold to persons who have standings in the market, and they
retail it to such individuals as choose to attend to purchase in smaller
quantities. Within this paved space rows of shops are conveniently
arranged for the display of the choicest fruits of the season: the
productions of the forcing-house, and the results of horticultural skill,
appear in all their beauty. There are also conservatories, in which
every beauty of the flower-garden may be obtained, from the rare exotic
to the simplest native flower. The _Floral Hall_, close to Covent Garden
Opera House, has an entrance from the north-east corner of the market, to
which it is a sort of appendage as a Flower Market. Balls, concerts,
&c., are occasionally given here. The _Farringdon_, _Borough_,
_Portman_, _Spitalfields_, and other vegetable markets, are small
imitations of that at Covent Garden.
The cultivation of vegetables in the open ground within ten miles
surrounding London, has arrived at great perfection; and so certain is
the demand, that the whole is regularly conveyed by land or water to the
metropolis; insomuch that persons residing in the neighbourhood of those
well-arranged gardens are really less readily accommodated than the
inhabitants of the metropolis, and have no supply of vegetables but such
as have already been sent to London, and thence back to retailers in
their own locality. There are also large supplies of foreign fruit and
vegetables. The annual produce of the garden-grounds cultivated to
supply the London markets with fruit and vegetables has been estimated at
the enormous weight of 360,000 tons, or 1,000 tons _per day_.
Corn.—The greater part of the _corn_ used for bread and other purposes in
the metropolis is sold by corn-factors at the _Corn Exchange_, Mark Lane;
but the corn itself is not taken to that place. Enormous quantities of
flour are also brought in, ground at mills in the country and in foreign
parts.
Malt liquors.—The _beer_ and _ale_ consumed in the metropolis is, of
course, vast in quantity, though there are no means of determining the
amount. If, by a letter of introduction, a stranger could obtain
admission to Barclay & Perkins’s or Truman & Hanbury’s breweries, he
would there see vessels and operations astonishing for their
magnitude—bins that are filled with 2,000 quarters of malt every week;
brewing-rooms nearly as large as Westminster Hall; fermenting vessels
holding 1,500 barrels each; a beer-tank large enough to float an up-river
steamer; vats containing 100,000 gallons each; and 60,000 casks, with 200
horses to convey them in drays to the taverns of the metropolis!
Shops and Bazaars.—The better-class London retail shops, for wealth,
variety, and vast number, are among the greatest wonders of the place.
They speak for themselves. The wholesale establishments with which New
Cannon Street, Wood Street, and the south side of St. Paul’s
Churchyard—noticeably the gigantic warehouses of Messrs. Cook &
Co.—abound, if, by a letter of introduction, an order of admission can be
obtained, would strike a stranger—in spite of less external display, save
as regards size—as more wonderful still, so enormous is the amount of
their business operations, and of capital incoming and outgoing.
There are about 7,400 streets, lanes, rows, &c., in the metropolis. From
Charing Cross, within a six miles radius, there are something over 2,600
miles of streets. As regards trades generally, it is hard even to get
anything like an approximate notion of their numbers. As the _Post
Office London Directory_ says, new trades are being added to the list
every year. Thus, we are told, 57 new trades were so added in the year
1870. But to specify a few, there are, say, about 130,000 shopkeepers,
or owners of commercial establishments, who carry on more than 2,500
different trades. Loss of much of London’s shipping trade, &c., has
indeed driven hundreds of emigrants of late from our east-end waterside
neighbourhoods. But London has gone on growing all the same, and trade
with it. Among these trades are, without counting purely wholesale
dealers, about 2,847 grocers and tea dealers, 2,087 butchers, 2,461
bakers, 1,508 dairymen, &c., 2,370 greengrocers and fruiterers, more than
595 retail fishmongers, 891 cheesemongers, (this computation does not
include the small shops in poor neighbourhoods which sell almost
everything,) 2,755 tailors, (not including about 500 old-clothesmen,
wardrobe-dealers, &c.,) about 3,347 bootmakers, about 450 hatters, and so
forth. All these are master tradesmen or shopkeepers, irrespective of
workmen, foremen, shopmen, clerks, porters, apprentices, and families.
We may add, that in the pages of that very large book the _London Post
Office Directory_, no less than 52 columns and over are occupied by the
long list of London publicans.
The principal Bazaars of London are the _Soho_, _London Crystal Palace_,
(Oxford Street,) and _Baker Street_ bazaars, to which should be added the
_Burlington Arcade_, Piccadilly, and the _Lowther Arcade_, (famous for
cheap toys,) in the Strand. The once celebrated _Pantheon_, in Oxford
Street, is now a wine merchant’s stores. Many small bazaars exist.
The Bazaar system of oriental countries, in which all the dealers in one
kind of commodity are met with in one place, is not observable in London;
yet a stranger may usefully bear in mind that, probably for the
convenience both of buyers and sellers, an approach to the system is
made. For instance, _coachmakers_ congregate in considerable number in
Long Acre and Great Queen Street; _watchmakers_ and _jewellers_, in
Clerkenwell; _tanners_ and _leather-dressers_, in Bermondsey; _bird_ and
_bird-cage sellers_, in Seven Dials; _statuaries_, in the Euston Road;
_sugar-refiners_, in and near Whitechapel; _furniture-dealers_, in
Tottenham Court Road; _hat-makers_, in Bermondsey and Southwark;
_dentists_, about St. Martin’s Lane; &c. There is one bazaar, if so we
may term it, of a very remarkable character—namely, _Paternoster Row_.
This street is a continuation of Cheapside, but is not used much as a
thoroughfare, though it communicates by transverse alleys or courts with
St. Paul’s Churchyard, and, at its western extremity, by means of
Ave-Maria Lane, leads into Ludgate Hill. Paternoster Row, or ‘the Row,’
as it is familiarly termed, is a dull street, only wide enough at certain
points to permit two vehicles to pass each other, with a narrow pavement
on each side. The houses are tall and sombre in their aspect, and the
shops below have a dead look, in comparison with those in the more
animated streets. But the deadness is all on the outside. For a
considerable period this street has been the head-quarters of booksellers
and publishers, who, till the present day, continue in such numbers as to
leave little room for other tradesmen—transacting business in the
book-trade to a prodigious amount. At the western extremity of
Paternoster Row a passage leads from Amen Corner to Stationers’ Hall
Court, in which is situated Stationers’ Hall, and also several
publishing-houses.
Mudie’s Library.—While on the subject of books, we may remind the visitor
that the most remarkable _lending library_ in the world is situated in
London. _Mudie’s_, at the corner of New Oxford Street and Museum Street,
affords a striking example of what the energy of one man can accomplish.
At this vast establishment the volumes are reckoned by hundreds of
thousands; and the circulation of them, on easy terms, extends to every
part of the kingdom. The chief portion of the building is a lofty
central gallery, of considerable beauty.
CLUBS; HOTELS; INNS; CHOP-HOUSES; TAVERNS; COFFEE-HOUSES; COFFEE-SHOPS.
Club-houses.—During the last forty or fifty years new habits amongst the
upper classes have led to the establishment of a variety of
_Club-houses_—places of resort unknown to our ancestors. There are at
present, including many fifth-rate clubs, about 84 clubs in London. A
London club-house is either the property of a private person, who engages
to furnish subscribers with certain accommodation, on paying a fixed sum
as entrance-money, and a specified annual subscription; or else it
belongs to a society of gentlemen who associate for the purpose. Of the
first class, the most noted are _Brookes’s_ and _White’s_, both situated
in St. James’s Street, The second class of clubs is most numerous: the
principal among them being the _Carlton_, _Junior Carlton_, _Reform_,
_Athenæum_, _Oriental_, _Conservative_, _Travellers’_, _United
University_, _Oxford and Cambridge_, _Army and Navy_, _Guards’_, _United
Service_, _Junior United Service_, _Union_, _Arthur’s_, and _Windham_
clubs. The houses belonging to these clubs respectively are among the
finest at the West-end of London, and may easily be distinguished in and
about Pall Mall, St. James’s Street, and Waterloo Place. No member
sleeps at his club; the accommodation extends to furnishing all kinds of
refreshments, the use of a library, and an ample supply of newspapers and
periodicals in the reading-room. The real object of these institutions
is to furnish a place of resort for a select number of gentlemen, on what
are really moderate terms. The Athenæum Club, (near the York Column,)
which consists chiefly of scientific and literary men, is one of the most
important. It has 1,200 members, each of whom pays thirty guineas
entrance-money, and seven guineas yearly subscription. As in all other
clubs, members are admitted only by ballot. The expense of the house in
building was £35,000, and £5,000 for furnishing; the plate, linen, and
glass cost £2,500; library, £5,000; and the stock of wine in cellar is
usually worth about £4,000. The other principal clubs vary from nine to
thirty guineas entrance-fee, from six to eleven guineas annual
subscription, and from 600 to 1,500 members. During part of the life of
the late M. Soyer, the _kitchen_ of the Reform Club-house was one of the
sights of the West-end. The _Garrick Club_, in Garrick Street, W.C.,
consists chiefly of theatrical and literary men. The same remark applies
to the _Arundel_, in Salisbury Street, Strand. The _Whittington Club_,
in the Strand, was the humblest of its class, and bore little resemblance
to the others; it was rather a literary and scientific institution, with
a refreshment department added.
The Albany.—The _Albany_ consists of a series of chambers, or suites of
apartments, intended for ‘West-end bachelors.’ No person carrying on a
trade or commercial occupation is allowed to live within its limits.
There are two entrances, one in Piccadilly and one in Burlington Gardens.
The chambers are placed in eleven groups, denoted by letters of the
alphabet, A to L. There are about 60 suites of apartments, many of which
are occupied by peers, members of parliament, honourables and right
honourables, and naval and military officers. Canning, Byron, and
Macaulay, are named amongst those who have lived in this singular place.
Hotels and Inns.—It has been conjectured (though probably in excess of
the truth) that at all times there are 150,000 strangers residing for a
few days only in the metropolis; and to accommodate this numerous
transient population, there is a vast number of lodging and
boarding-houses, hotels, and other places of accommodation. There are
upwards of 500 better-class hotels, inns, and taverns. There are about
120 private hotels not licensed, and therefore do not keep exciseable
liquors for sale. There are about 5,200 public-houses licensed to sell
wines, spirits, and malt liquors. There are more than 1,964 beer-shops,
where malt liquors only are sold.
The fashionable hotels are situated west of Charing Cross—as, for
instance, _Claridge’s_, Brook Street, Grosvenor Square; _Fenton’s_, St.
James’s Street; _Limmer’s_, George Street, Hanover Square; the
_Clarendon_, in New Bond Street; the _Burlington_, in Old Burlington
Street; _Grillon’s_, in Albemarle Street; _Long’s_, in Bond Street; the
_Palace_, Pimlico; _Wright’s_, Dover Street; _Morley’s_, Trafalgar
Square; _Hatchett’s_, Dover Street; _Maurigy’s_, Regent Street; _Marshall
Thompson’s_, Cavendish Square; the _Albemarle_, Albemarle Street; the
_Hyde Park_, near the Marble Arch; the _Alexandra_, Hyde Park Corner; &c.
In and about Covent Garden there are several good hotels for single
gentlemen; among others, the _Cavendish_, the _Bedford_, the _New_ and
_Old Hummums_, and the _Tavistock_. One or two others, in Bridge Street,
Blackfriars, are excellent hotels. Foreign hotels of a medium class are
numerous in and about Leicester Square. Another class of hotels or inns
are those from which stage-coaches at one time ran, and which were
resorted to by commercial and other gentlemen; for example, the _Golden
Cross_, (now renovated and extended,) near Charing Cross; the _White
Horse Cellar_, Piccadilly; the _Bell and Crown_, Holborn; the _Castle and
Falcon_, Aldersgate Street; and the _Bull-in-Mouth_, (now called the
_Queen’s_,) opposite the General Post Office, in St. Martin’s-le-Grand.
These have all become comfortable middle-class hotels, with railway
booking-offices attached; but the fall of the stage-coach trade has
lessened their importance to a great extent. To these we may add certain
large inn and tavern establishments at other parts of the town—such as
the _Bridge House Hotel_, at London Bridge; the _Angel_, at Islington;
and the _Elephant and Castle_, Newington Causeway.
The almost universal defect of the older class of hotels in London is,
that they are too often private dwellings extemporized for purposes of
public accommodation—not buildings erected with the distinct object for
which they are used. Hence the London hotels, generally, are confined
and awkward in their arrangements—a huddle of apartments on different
levels, narrow passages, and the offensive odour of cookery being common.
Rarely is there anything to parallel the larger hotels of New York, or
the _Hotel du Louvre_ at Paris. The nearest approach to these foreign
establishments is found in certain hotels adjoining the railway termini,
of recent construction. These are the _Euston_ and _Victoria Hotels_,
near Euston terminus; the _Great Northern Hotel_, adjoining the King’s
Cross terminus; the _Great Western Hotel_, at the Paddington _terminus_;
_the Grosvenor Hotel_, at the Pimlico terminus; the _London Bridge
Terminus Hotel_, adjoining the Brighton Railway terminus; the fine
_South-Eastern Railway Hotel_, Cannon Street; the _Westminster Palace
Hotel_, Victoria Street, Westminster; the _Midland_, at St. Pancras; and
the _Charing Cross Railway Hotel_. At these new and extensive hotels the
accommodation is on a better footing than in the older and generally
small houses. But notwithstanding these additions, it is indisputable
that the amount of hotel accommodation is still meagre and defective.
The want of large good hotels in central situations, to give
accommodation at moderate charges, remains one of the conspicuous
deficiencies of the metropolis. The _Langham_, however, in Portland
Place, is an excellent hotel. So is the _Salisbury Hotel_, Salisbury
Square, Fleet Street. The idea of building a large hotel in the Strand,
near St. Mary’s Church, was, by-the-by, abandoned in favour of the new
_Globe Theatre_; while that handsome building, the _Inns of Court Hotel_,
in Holborn and Lincoln’s Inn Fields, has never yet been properly
finished, and is now (1873) a failure.
In and about London, we may mention, are sundry extensive and
highly-respectable taverns, which, though principally designed for
accommodating large dining and other festive gatherings, lodge gentlemen
with every comfort. Among these may be mentioned the _London Tavern_;
the _Albion_, in Aldersgate Street; several in Fleet Street, near
Blackfriars Bridge; the _Freemasons’ Tavern_, Great Queen Street,
Lincoln’s Inn Fields; and so forth. There is, besides, a class of
taverns whose chief business is supplying dinners and slight
refreshments, also the accommodation of newspapers, and which are
resorted to chiefly by commercial men. Each of these has a distinct
character. _Garraway’s_ and _Lloyd’s_, at the Royal Exchange, were once
coffee-houses, but now are associated with marine intelligence,
stock-trading, and auctions; and in Cornhill, opposite, the _North and
South American Coffee-house_ supplies American newspapers; and here also
are to be seen the captains of vessels who are preparing to sail to
different ports in the western continent and islands. At the _Jerusalem_
and _East India Coffee-house_, Cowper’s Court, Cornhill, information
relating to East India shipping and captains may be obtained. _Peele’s
__Coffee-house_, in Fleet Street, is celebrated for keeping files of
newspapers, which may be consulted; this accommodation, as respects
London papers, may also be had at some other places. Other economical
Reading-Rooms are noticed in the _Appendix_.
Chop-houses, Coffee-shops, and Dining-rooms.—The next class of houses of
this nature comprises _Chop-houses_, but also doing the business of
taverns, and resorted to chiefly by business-men—as the _Chapter_, in
Paternoster Row; the _Mitre_, the _Cock_, the _Cheshire Cheese_, and the
_Rainbow_, in Fleet Street. Many such houses are to be met with near the
Bank of England, in Cheapside, Bucklersbury, Threadneedle Street,
Bishopsgate Street, and the alleys turning out of Cornhill. The _Ship
and Turtle_, in Leadenhall Street, was a famous turtle-house; and others
are noted for some specialty.
London contains a very numerous class of _Coffee-shops_, of a much more
humble, though perhaps more useful nature, at which coffee, cocoa, tea,
bread and butter, toast, chops and steaks, bacon and eggs, and cold meat,
may be obtained at very moderate prices; a few pence will purchase a
morning or evening meal at such places; and many working-men dine there
also. There are about 1,500 houses of this class in London. There is
another class of _Eating-houses_ or _Dining-rooms_, resorted to for
dinners by large numbers of persons. _Lake’s_, _His Lordship’s Larder_,
and one or two others, in Cheapside; _Izant’s_, and several others in and
near Bucklersbury; the _Chancery Dining-rooms_, in Chancery Lane; the
_Fish Ordinary_ at the _Three Tuns_ in Billingsgate, and at _Simpson’s_
in Cheapside; and several dining-rooms in and near the Haymarket and
Rupert Street—may be reckoned among the number. A good but simple dinner
may be had at these houses for from 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d. At the _St.
James’s Hall Restaurant_, in Regent Street; _Blanchard’s_, Regent Street,
corner of Burlington Street; the _Albion_, Russell Street, near Drury
Lane Theatre; the _London_, Fleet Street, nearly opposite the Inner
Temple gate; _Simpson’s_, in the Strand, opposite Exeter Hall; and last,
but by no means least, at _Speirs and Pond’s Restaurant_, at Ludgate
Station of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway; a very fair dinner may
be had, at prices varying from, say, a minimum of half-a-crown up to a
greater cost, according to the state of the diner’s tastes and finances.
At the _Gaiety Restaurant_, adjoining the Gaiety Theatre, a good dinner
may be had. At Cremorne Gardens, too, there used to be a good _table
d’hôte_ for 2s. 6d.
Temperance Hotels.—There are several good houses of this character.
Among others may be named _The Waverley_, King Street, Cheapside;
_Angus’s_, Bridge Street, Blackfriars; _Anderson’s_, Theobald Road; and
_Ling’s_, South Street, Finsbury.
THEATRES, CONCERTS, AND OTHER PLACES OF AMUSEMENT.