It is said of a stranger who came to London for the first time, and took
up his quarters in one of the most crowded city streets, that he remained
standing at the door the whole of the first day of his London existence,
because he waited until the crowd had gone. A man, says Max Schlesinger,
who would do that, ought to rise and go to bed with the owl. The owl is
the symbol of wisdom; for once I would prevail upon the reader to do as
the owls do, and become wise as they. You may live at Clapham all your
life, come into the city every day, attend on a gospel ministry, as the
slang phrase is,--for it is not only wicked people that talk slang,--and
know no more of London than the British public do of Timbuctoo.
Think of what London is. At the last census there were 2,362,236 persons
of both sexes in it; 1,106,558 males, of whom 146,449 were under 5 years
of age; and 1,255,678 females, of whom 147,173 were under 5 years of age.
The unmarried males were 679,380, ditto females 735,871; the married men
were 399,098, the wives 409,731; the widowers were 37,080, the widows
110,076. On the night of the census there were 28,598 husbands whose
wives were not with them, and 39,231 wives mourning their absent lords.
In 1856 the number of children born in London was 86,833, only one in 25
of which is illegitimate; in the same period 56,786 persons died. The
Registrar-General assumes that, with the additional births, and by the
fact of soldiers and sailors returning from the seat of war, and of
persons engaged in peaceful pursuits settling in the capital, sustenance,
clothing, and house accommodation must now be found in London for about
60,000 inhabitants more than it contained at the end of 1855. Think of
that--the population of a large city absorbed in London, and no
perceptible inconvenience occasioned by it! Houses are still to let;
there are still the usual tickets hung up in windows in quiet
neighbourhoods, intimating that apartments furnished for the use of
single gentlemen can be had within; the country still supplies the town
with meat and bread, and we hear of no starvation in consequence of
deficient supply. London is the healthiest city in the world. The city
death-rate, according to Dr. Letheby's report for 1857, is 22.5 per 1000,
and in all England it is 22.2. During the last ten years the annual
deaths have been on the average 25 to 1000 of the population, in 1856 the
proportion was 22 to 1000; yet, in spite of this, half of the deaths that
happen on an average in London between the ages of 20 and 40 are from
consumption and diseases of the respiratory organs. The Registrar traces
this to the state of the streets. He says: "There can be no doubt that
the dirty dust suspended in the air that the people of London breathe
often excites diseases of the respiratory organs. The dirt of the
streets is produced and ground now by innumerable horses, omnibuses, and
carriages, and then beat up in fine dust, which fills the mouth, and
inevitably enters the air-passages in large quantities. The dust is not
removed every day, but, saturated with water in the great thoroughfares,
sometimes ferments in damp weather, and at other times ascends again
under the heat of the summer sun as atmospheric dust."
London, says Henry Mayhew, may be safely asserted to be the most densely
populated city in all the world; containing one-fourth more people than
Pekin, and two-thirds more than Paris--more than twice as many as
Constantinople--four times as many as St. Petersburg--five times as many
as Vienna, or New York, or Madrid--nearly seven times as many as
Berlin--eight times as many as Amsterdam--nine times as many as
Rome--fifteen times as many as Copenhagen--and seventeen times as many as
Stockholm. "London," says Horace Say, "c'est une province couverte de
maisons." It covers an area of 122 square miles in extent, or 78,029
statute acres; and contains 327,391 houses. Annually 4000 new houses are
in erection for upwards of 40,000 new-comers. The continuous line of
buildings stretching from Highgate to Camberwell is said to be 12 miles
long. It is computed if the buildings were set in a row they would reach
across the whole of England and France, from York to the Pyrenees.
When the stone in Panyer's Alley was placed on its site three centuries
since, the circumference was about five miles. At present, however, to
make a pedestrian expedition around the metropolis would, to most
persons, be an undertaking of some importance, as may be seen by
referring to the following particulars, which have been gathered from a
recently published map:--From Chiswick to Kentish-town, 12 miles; from
Kentish-town to Millwall, 17.5 miles; from Millwall to Chiswick, 28
miles--total, 57.5 miles, very nearly three days' journey, at the rate of
20 miles a day; and it will be observed that in the line drawn,
Battersea, Clapham, Canning-town, and many other places, which even at
present can be scarcely said to be separated from London, have been left
out. "As the crow would fly" across streets and houses from the point
whence we started at Chiswick to the farthest east, the distance is
nearly eleven miles, and the greatest width from north to south upwards
of seven miles. The metropolis is divided into 38 different poor-law
districts, some of them parishes, and some of them unions, but each
managing separately their own poor. Of these, 27 are in Middlesex, two
in Kent, and nine in Surrey. Of the 27 in Middlesex, 10 are unions of
various extent; 17 are single parishes, many of them of great extent, and
comprising a large amount of property and population. The unions in
Middlesex consist of a small number of parishes, two consisting of two
parishes, two of three, one of five, one of four, one of six, one of
seven, and one of nine parishes. The city of London consists of 98
parishes, some of them small in extent, but containing a large amount of
property and population. The unions in Kent consist of four and seven
parishes. Of the nine in Surrey three are unions, consisting, one of two
parishes, another of three, and the third of six parishes. The remaining
six are all single parishes, each administering its own affairs. The
total population of these districts is 2,500,000; the average number of
paupers to be dealt with 105,000; the amount of expenditure for the year
ending Lady-day, 1856, was 875,000 pounds; and the net rateable value of
the property contributing to the relief of the poor was 10,900,000
pounds. The proportion which the metropolis bore to the whole of England
and Wales was, as to population, one-eighth; as to pauperism,
one-twelfth.
London has 10,500 distinct streets, squares, circuses, crescents,
terraces, villas, rows, buildings, places, lanes, courts, alleys, mews,
yards, rents. The paved streets of London, according to a return
published in 1856, number over 5000, and exceed 2000 miles in length; the
cost of this paved roading was 14 millions, and the repairs cost
1,800,000 pounds per annum. The Post Office employs 3200 officials in
London alone. London contains 1900 miles of gas pipes, with a capital of
nearly 4,000,000 pounds spent in the preparation of gas. The cost of
gas-lighting is half a million. It has 360,000 lights; and 13,000,000
cubic feet of gas are burnt every night. Last year along these streets
the enormous quantity of upwards of 80 millions of gallons of water
rushed for the supply of the inhabitants, being nearly double what it was
in 1845. Mr Mayhew says, if the entire people of the capital were to be
drawn up in marching order, two and two, the length of the great army of
Londoners would be no less than 670 miles, and supposing them to move at
the rate of three miles an hour, it would require more than nine days and
nights for the average population to pass by. To accommodate this crowd,
125,000 vehicles pass through the thoroughfares in the course of 12
hours; 3000 cabs, 10,000 private and job carriages and carts, ply daily
in the streets; at the present time there are upwards of 800 omnibuses
running along various routes in the metropolis, and of this number 595
are the property of a single and mostly foreign proprietary, the London
General Omnibus Company. 600 omnibuses, with horses and harness and
goodwill, were purchased by the company for a sum of 400,000 pounds, or
for very nearly 700 pounds for each vehicle. The 595 omnibuses of the
company ran in London, in the week ending 31st of October, 1857, not less
than 222,779 miles, or nearly ten times the circumference of the globe,
and they carried not less than 920,000 passengers. Assuming that the
remaining one-fourth of the London omnibuses, not belonging to the
company, carried an equal proportion, we shall have, as the travelling
portion of the population of London, 1,115,000 persons. 3000 conveyances
enter the metropolis daily from the surrounding country. In the year
1856 the total revenue derived from the duty on omnibuses within the area
of the great metropolis amounted to 74,270 pounds against 85,965 pounds
in 1855, and 108,051 pounds in 1854. The revenue from cabs in the
metropolis was 82,110 pounds against 75,281 pounds, and 64,210 pounds in
1854. Of the revenue on omnibuses last year, 69,493 pounds accrued from
mileage duty, 3791 pounds from license duty, and 983 pounds from drivers'
and conductors' licenses. As regards the cab duty, 74,736 pounds accrued
from weekly duty, 5292 pounds from license duty, and 2081 pounds from
drivers' and watermen's licenses.