by suburban and subterranean railroads that knit all districts of the metropolis, and will soon utilise that forlorn specimen of Brunel's genius-the tunnel beneath the Thames. The docks cover nearly a thousand acres, and receive yearly thousands of ships, much of whose freightage is deposited in the bonding warehouses, of extraordinary extent. The river below London Bridge is also alive with coasting vessels; and, higher up, fleets of steamers ply for miles from pier to pier. The first essay of sanitary reform turned a new tide of sewage into the Thames, but the main drainage scheme, just about now completed, at a cost of above four millions, removes this matter out of place,' far from sight and smell. The formation of large suburban cemeteries is likewise a boon to decency and health. When the Embankment Esplanade and Holborn Valley improvements are completed, and the Palace of Justice (near Lincoln's Inn Fields) ceases to be a magnificent project, London will have cause for peculiar pride and pleasure-both to be increased when a new National Gallery is raised worthy of the British arts, and worthy also of the noblest site in Europe, and of the life-like lions at the base of Nelson's column.

The size of modern London may be differently computed. The London Postal District embraces a radius of about ten miles from the chief office, St. Martin's-le-Grand. The Metropolitan Police District embraces fifteen miles in all directions around Charing Cross (except the City). But, strictly speaking, London is the area of 77,997 statute acres, or nearly 122 square miles, placed under the supervision of the Metropolitan Board of Works. This area is all but coincident with the 33 metropolitan districts of births, deaths, and marriages, and was found to contain, at the census of April, 1861, a population of 2,803,987 souls, an increase of about two millions since 1801. The official estimate for the middle of 1866 gave the number of inhabitants as 3,037,991, a population little short of that of all Scotland, and nearly equal to the collective population of the twelve next largest cities and boroughs of the United Kingdom. The births in 1866 were 107,992, the deaths 80,129, an excess of births over deaths of 27,863. The annual rate of mortality was 2.647 per cent., or 25 persons in every 1,000 living. Had the rate of mortality remained what it was in 1730, the deaths in 1866 would have been about 140,000-a rate of 4.500 per cent., or 45 persons in every 1,000 living.

From the subjoined table it will be seen that the population of London is very unevenly distributed :—

The mortality of the East district was much increased in 1866 by the cholera. The per-centage in 1865 was 2.640. The resident population of the City was but 113,387 in 1861, and is now probably much less, although the persons residing in it during the active hours of the day were 383,520, and 679,744 passengers were enumerated as passing into it within 16 hours (5 a.m. to 9 p.m.) The population of the City decays because it is becoming more and more the focus of great commercial interests, uniting the whole metropolis, and ramifying throughout the British empire and the globe. The multitude of shops and warehouses, and the endless traffic of London (which sounds at the top of St. Paul's like the murmur of the sea), bewilder the senses of the stranger. Dr. Johnson's remark, that in the line of shops between Charing Cross and Whitechapel there was presented the greatest display of articles of luxury to be found in the world, expresses a fact relatively far greater to-day than when first uttered, much as the wealth of other cities has since augmented. A large proportion of the commercial dealings of the civilised earth pass through London. Its customs receipts amounted in. 1865 to £10,942,913, which more than equalled those of all other ports in the United Kingdom, and were four times greater than those of Liverpool, the same of Scotland, and five times those of all Ireland. In that year the vessels arriving in port were 11,690, of which 3,112 were steamers; in 1835 the total number was 4,837. The Custom House staff, all told, is 1,149, of whom 851 are officers on outdoor duty. The entries made and bonds made out in 1865 were 930,910. Two lines of figures will show the proportion of live stock imported into London in 1865, with the total brought into the United Kingdom (including London) :

Oxen and
Bulls.

Cows. Calves. Sheep. Lambs. Pigs. 125,689... 3,862... 36,704 ... 512,975 ... 13,067... 82,193 United Kingdom... 188,326... 36,202 ... 55,743 ... 894,524 ... 19,642 ... 132,943

London......

The annual value of property assessed in London, under Schedule D, in 1866 was £15,261,999, of which the City share

was £2,137,791, and the borough of Marylebone £2,737,964. The food and clothing supply of London is drawn from every cultivated region of the globe, and includes an incalculable variety of stores of every kind. Setting down its expenditure on food at 6d. per head daily of its inhabitants, the annual cost of its physical aliment will not be less than twenty-nine millions sterling. To this must be added about ten millions wasted-and much of it worse than wasted-upon intoxicating liquors. Eight water companies supply it with more than a hundred million gallons daily, a large portion of which runs to waste; and ten gas companies furnish it with artificial light, which might be considerably brighter and cheaper than it is.

When the census was taken in 1861, the population of London was 14 per cent. of that of England and Wales, and nearly one-tenth of the United Kingdom. The number of persons living in it of 20 years of age and upwards was 1,617,930, which was 14 per cent. of the same class in England and Wales. The following figures will show how these adults were engaged in life, with the numerical proportion borne by each section to the adults of the same section in the whole of England and Wales (London inclusive) :Professional, 95,925 (23 per cent.); domestic, 665,168 (16 per cent.); commercial, 135,846 (27 per cent.); agricultural, 25,260 (1 per cent.); industrial, 584,787 (15 per cent.); indefinite and non-productive, 110,944 (18 per cent.) The 190 parishes of London, in the fourth week of May, 1866, gave in-door relief to 29,366 (24 per cent. of all England and Wales), and out-door relief to 69,640 (9 per cent. of all England and Wales)-a total of 99,006, just over 3 per cent. of the London population, and 11 per cent. of the whole number of paupers in the same week in England and Wales. In the year ending Lady-day, 1865, the poor's rates amounted to £976,262, on rateable property valued at £14,730,232.* The hospitals, infirmaries, and dispensaries of London-all of them supported by voluntary contributions-are on a scale unapproached outside its own boundaries; and in the Postoffice Directory for 1867' 560 societies are enumerated, many of them of large income, and exercising a world-wide influence. These comprise the great scientific and literary associations of the empire, all of which have their headquarters in London. Its publishing trade sends out annually

In the year ending Easter, 1803, the poor of London receiving in-door relief was 14,756, and out-door 55,145, a total of 69,901, besides 16,301 casuals. The cost was £332,625.

millions of volumes; and its periodical press, under the stimulus of mechanical invention and the abolition of the advertisement, stamp, and paper duties, has become a universal medium of public instruction and education. Its morning newspapers are 17, its evening 10-a majority of them first-class. Its weekly publications, of all kinds, number 240, and about 408 others of a serial character issue from its presses. The circulation of the daily press is a phenomenon of the age. One penny journal (which claims to be the most widely circulated in the world) certainly prints more copies yearly than were sent out from all the newspaper printing offices in the United Kingdom in 1840! Of course, in estimating a paper's political and general influence, other criteria besides the number of copies sold have to be taken into account. The various reductions in the postal charges have affected London more than any other part of the country; and the following statistics, taken from the Postmaster-General's Annual Report for 1864, will best unfold their own wondrous tale of facts :

All England & Wales. 39,811,954 31,415,202 14,807,025 14,613,479 1,741,872 All United Kingdom. 50,027,068 45,518,772 17,317,093 17,544,117 2,007,281

The application of telegraphy to business purposes within the metropolitan district is increasing. The directly moral and religious agencies in operation over London are numerous and powerful; yet it is to be feared that they do not keep pace with the progress of population. Domestic and open-air missions, ragged schools, the midnight movement, theatre services, and temperance societies are actively plied; yet, with so many causes of vice and irreligion in motion, particu

* By London' here is to be understood Postal London-that is to say, all the area within a radius of about ten miles from the chief office, comprising about one-tenth more houses and people than are included in the registration districts, and under the authority of the Board of Works. The year 1864 is the one selected for comparison, since, for some unexplained cause, the figures are not furnished separately in the Postmaster-General's Report for 1865.

larly so gigantic a system of demoralisation as the licensed liquor traffic, the efforts of all philanthropists and evangelists are shackled and thwarted to a deplorable extent. Drinking shops-and not least those which take the name of music halls-corrupt by wholesale, while other institutions perform their salutary task of individual reform with an enfeebled hand. The latest carefully compiled statistics as to Church accommodation have a significance that speaks for itself:*

It is, nevertheless, true that the means of counteracting much of the vice and misery of the greatest of great cities are within the power of the friends of morality and Christianity, if they will employ them.

The government of London is exercised by various boards. The City has retained its autonomy, and is ruled by its Court of Common Council, consisting of the Lord Mayor, 25 aldermen, and 206 commoners, elected by the wards. The rest of the metropolis is under the administration of 38 local boards, constituted under the Metropolitan Management Act of 1855, and consisting of 2,279 vestrymen. For improvement purposes the whole of these boards, with the City, are represented by deputies, who compose the Metropolitan Board of Works; but some better organisation is loudly called for. Were each borough or general district formed into a municipality for local purposes, and were they to elect a senate for all London, under the presidency of the Lord Mayor, much of the misgovernment now complained of would cease. The City returns four members to Parliament, the city of Westminster two, and the six boroughs of Marylebone, Finsbury, Tower Hamlets, Lambeth, Southwark, and Greenwich, two each (18 in all), though the aggregate number of electors is upwards of 170,000, about one-eighth of all the electors in the United Kingdom. The new Reform Bill creates two other boroughs, Hackney and Chelsea. Such a disparity between voters and members is only justifiable on a theory that would render all representative government 'a mockery and a snare.'

For police purposes there are two distinct, but when needful

* Extracted from 'Supplement to the Nonconformist,' Nov. 15, 1866.