He was possessed of a considerable sum of money; for, in addition to the amount he realised by following the business of a frame-maker, and a dealer in works of art, he had the hundred pounds which the earl had sent by his lawyer as a bonus.
He was bent upon seeing something of London life, and therefore hastened at once up to the metropolis.
London has attractions for provincial and country people which perhaps no other city in the United Kingdom possesses, albeit its native population are in a measure heedless of its many attractions.
It is a wonderful city nevertheless, as the following facts uncontestably prove:—
London (with all its suburbs) covers within the fifteen miles radius of Charing-cross nearly seven hundred square miles.
It numbers within its boundaries four million inhabitants.
It contains more country-bred persons than the counties of Devon and Gloucester combined, or 37 per cent. of its entire population.
Every four minutes a birth takes place in the metropolis and every six minutes a death.
Within the circle named there are added to the population two hundred and five persons every day and seventy-five thousand annually.
London has seven thousand miles of streets, and on an average twenty-eight miles of new streets are opened and nine thousand new houses built every year. One thousand vessels and nine thousand sailors are in port every day.