Chapter VI.
London.
We now approach London, the mighty mistress of the commercial world, the most populous city on our globe. Here, certers the trade of all nations here, is transacted the business of the world. If you would know how it looks where concentration of business has reached its climax, then come to London. Many of its streets are so crowded with omnibuses, wagons, dray-carts, &c., that it is almost Impossible for a pedestrian to cross them. When the principal streets intersect each other, the bustle and tumult of trade is so great, that it becomes a dangerous undertaking to attempt to effect a crossing at such a square.
For the protection and accommodation of those on foot, the squares are provided with little platforms elevated a step above the surface of the road and surrounded with a thick row of stone posts between these, the pedestrian can enter, but they shield him from the clanger of being tread under the feet of horses, or run over by vehicles. Here one stands perfectly safe, even when everything is confusion for an acre around. As soon as an opportunity opens, he runs to the next landing; and thus continues, from landing to landing, until the opposite side of the square is reached. It often requires five minutes to accomplish this feat. It has been estimated that no less than 20,000 teams and equestrians, and 107,000 pedestrians cross London Bridge every twenty-four hours. By police arrangement, slow traffic travel at the sides and the quick in the center. It is 928 feet long and fifty-four wide. Not only are the streets crowded, but beneath the houses and streets, in the dark bosom of the earth, there is a net-work of
Underground Railroads,
extending to all parts of the city, which pick up that surplus of travel which it has become impossible to accomplish above.
There are some thirty miles of tunneled railways in London, now, and the work of extending them is carried on with increasing energy. This railway is double track everywhere, and forms two circuits, upon one of which the trains continually run in one direction, while those on the other track run in the opposite direction. Collisions are therefore impossible between these two systems of counter-currents. Numerous stations are built all along these roads, where travelers can descend to meet the trains or leave them, to make their ascend to the city above. To give the reader an idea of the immense amount of traveling done in these dark passages under London, it need only be stated that long trains of cars pass each station every "ten minutes," and are as well filled with passengers as those of railroads on the surface of the earth. The cars are comfortably lighted, so that after one has taken his seat and the train begins to run along, it resembles night-traveling so perfectly, that the difference is scarcely perceptible.
Of all modes of travel, these underground railroads afford the quickest, cheapest, safest and most convenient manner of transit.
This great metropolis includes the cities of London and Westminster, the borough of Southwark, and thirty-six adjacent parishes, precincts, townships, &c. It covers an area of 122 square miles, and has a population of about 4,000,000, that of the City of London proper being no more than about 75,000. Murray's Modern London contains the following statistics:
"The Metropolis is supposed to consume in one year 1,600,000 quarters of wheat, 300,000 bullocks, 1,700,000 sheep, 28,000 calves, and 35,000 pigs." (If these animals were arranged in a double line, they would constitute a drove over a thousand miles long!)