ROYAL EXCHANGE.
Going down into the heart of the old city of London, and standing in the street called the Poultry, the Bank of England and the Royal Exchange are seen over on the other side, with Threadneedle Street between them, and Lombard Street on the right hand, the region that controls the monetary affairs of the world. Turning round, the Mansion House is behind the observer, this being the lord mayor's residence and the head-quarters of the city government. The Royal Exchange has been thrice built and twice burned—first in the great fire of 1666, and afterwards in 1838. The present Exchange, costing $900,000, was opened in 1844, and is three hundred and eight feet long, with a fine portico on the western front ninety-six feet wide, and supported by twelve columns, each forty-one feet high. Within is an open area surrounded by an arcade, while at the rear is Lloyds, the underwriters' offices, where the business of insuring ships is transacted in a hall ninety-eight feet long and forty feet wide. Wellington's statue stands in front of the Exchange, and in the middle of the central area is a statue of Queen Victoria. The Bank of England, otherwise known as the "Old Lady of Threadneedle Street," covers a quadrangular space of about four acres, with a street on each side. It is but one story high, and has no windows on the outside, the architecture being unattractive. The interior is well adapted for the bank offices, which are constructed around nine courts. The bank has been built in bits, and gradually assumed its present size and appearance. It was founded in 1691 by William Paterson, but it did not remove to its present site until 1734. Its affairs are controlled by a governor, deputy governor, and twenty-four directors, and the bank shares of $500 par, paying about ten per cent. dividends per annum, sell at about $1400. It regulates the discount rate, gauging it so as to maintain its gold reserves, and it also keeps the coinage in good order by weighing every coin that passes through the bank, and casting out the light ones by an ingenious machine that will test thirty-five thousand in a day. It also prints its own notes upon paper containing its own water-mark, which is the chief reliance against forgery. The bank transacts the government business in connection with the British public debt of about $3,850,000,000, all in registered stock, and requiring two hundred and fifty thousand separate accounts to be kept. Its deposits aggregate at least $130,000,000, and its capital is $72,765,000. The bank is the great British storehouse for gold, keeping on deposit the reserves of the joint-stock banks and the private bankers of London, and it will have in its vaults at one time eighty to one hundred millions of dollars in gold in ingots, bullion, or coin, this being the basis on which the entire banking system of England is conducted. It keeps an accurate history of every bank-note that is issued, redeeming each note that comes back into the bank in the course of business, and keeping all the redeemed and cancelled notes. The earliest notes were written with a pen, and from this they have been improved until they have become the almost square white pieces of paper of to-day, printed in bold German text, that are so well known, yet are unlike any other bank-notes in existence. Around the large elliptical table in the bank parlor the directors meet every Thursday to regulate its affairs, and—not forgetting they are true Englishmen—eat a savory dinner, the windows of the parlor looking out upon a little gem of a garden in the very heart of London. The Mansion House, built in 1740, is fronted by a Corinthian portico, with six fluted columns and a pediment of allegorical sculpture. Within is the Egyptian Hall, where the lord mayor fulfils what is generally regarded as his chief duty, the giving of grand banquets. He can invite four hundred persons to the tables in this spacious hall, which is ornamented by several statues by British sculptors, over $40,000 having been expended for its ornamentation. The lord mayor also has a ball-room and other apartments, including his Venetian parlor and the justice room where he sits as a magistrate. From the open space in front of the Mansion House diverge streets running to all parts of London and the great bridges over the Thames.
MANSION HOUSE.
THE INNS OF COURT.
The four Inns of Court in London have been described as the palladiums of English liberty—the Inner Temple, Middle Temple, Lincoln's Inn, and Gray's Inn. There are over three thousand barristers members of these Inns, and the best known is probably Lincoln's Inn, which is named after De Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, who died in 1312, and had his house on its site, his device, the lion rampant, being adopted by the Inn. The ancient gatehouse, which opens from Chancery Lane, is nearly four hundred years old. The Inn has an old hall dating from 1506, and also a fine modern hall, the Newcastle House, one hundred and twenty feet long, built in Tudor style, with stained-glass windows and having life-size figures of several eminent members in canopied niches. Here is Hogarth's celebrated picture of "Paul before Felix." The Inn has a valuable library, and among its members has counted More, Hale, Selden, Mansfield, and Hardwicke.
THE LAW COURTS.