generally. In England, and Wales, and Scotland, the increase of population in 1811, as compared with 1801, was aboye 15 per cent.-in London, above 16; in 1821 the general increase was little more than 14 per cent.-in London more than 17; and in 1831 the difference was still greater, the country population having increased 15 per cent., whilst London had increased 20 per cent. Thus at the last census London had increased in ten years 25 per cent. faster than the general population of Great Britain. But, comparing the returns of 1831 with those of 1801, we are enabled to trace the particular directions of the increase. New cities, during the present century, have been almost created. London proper the City of London-had decreased 4 per cent. in its inhabitants and 5 per cent. in the number of houses. London, Westminster, and Southwark,the London of a century ago,-contained only 450,000 inhabitants in round numbers. But Finsbury contained 224,000; St. Mary-le-bone, 234,000; Lambeth, 154,000; the Tower Hamlets, 302,000. Each of these are mighty cities; and the four embrace a population that at the present time we may reckon as containing a million of inhabitants.

During the lapse of two centuries and a half since the proclamations of Elizabeth against the increase of London, and of two centuries from the date of those of Charles I., we have got rid of the apprehension that the "access and confluence" of people dependent upon and urging forward the increase of the capital would amount to such multitudes that they "could hardly be governed by ordinary justice." London has gone on increasing; and yet for how long a time has it been exempt from such scenes as those described by Fleetwood, its Recorder, about the period of Elizabeth's proclamation of 1581! He writes thus to Lord Burghley: "My singular good lord,-Upon Thursday, at even, her Majesty in her coach near Islington, taking of the air, her Highness was environed with a number of rogues. One Mr. Stone, a footman, came in all haste to my Lord Mayor, and after to me, and told us of the same. I did the same night send warrants out into the said quarters, and into Westminster, and the Duchy; and in the morning I went abroad myself, and I took that day seventyfour rogues." The number of rogues who environed her Majesty appears to have produced a tremendous consternation. Fleetwood went on taking "shoals of rogues," "numbers of rogues," and, to use his very expressive term, he “gave them substantial payment." He adds, "the chief nursery of all those evil people is the Savoy, and the brick-kilns near Islington."* London is now, with its two millions of inhabitants, the most orderly city in the world. There are no shoals of rogues brought in to be whipped; their gathering together is prevented. And yet no honest man, however humble, quietly pursuing his occupation, can be molested by this preventive power. Fleetwood lets us into a secret as to the mode in which, amongst the rogues, "each one received his payment according to his deserts." He says, "they brought unto me at Bridewell six tall fellows that were draymen unto brewers. The constables, if they might have had their own will, would have brought as many more." Were these tall fellows discharged? They were all soundly paid, and sent home to their masters." This, we hope, was not quite the ordinary justice by which the increasing multitudes of London were to be governed; and yet the administration of the laws had so little

66

* Ellis's Letters, vol. ii.

justice, and therefore so little policy, in its composition, that we are not surprised that the government dreaded any increase of the masses of the people. There was, however, another cause of alarm. The increasing multitudes "could hardly be provided of sustentation of victual, food, and other like necessaries for man's relief, upon reasonable price." It is just possible that, with very bad roads, a large city might be in this condition. We doubt if there ever was a very large city without ample means of external communication by sea, by rivers connected with the sea, or by inland roads. The supply of food to such a city must be drawn from a larger area than the country immediately around it. London is most favourably situated in this respect; and we believe that even in the time of Elizabeth there could have been no difficulty in supplying with food any amount of inhabitants in the capital. The increase of its inhabitants must, to a certain extent, have been always proportionate, if not to the actual increase of the other inhabitants of the country, to the increase of the whole productive power of the country. London could not be fed during an increase of its inhabitants, if the capital and profits of London did not proportionally increase. But that increase of capital would increase the food, by the best of all possible means-by increasing the productive power by which it could alone be supplied. We may dismiss therefore, once and for ever, the notion that London can sustain a deficiency of food as long as she has the means of purchasing food. The wonderful precision with which her daily supplies are regulated may be almost termed the result of a law of nature. Nothing is done in concert; but each man acts upon the dictates of his own interest; and thus, and thus alone, there is no deficiency, and no waste.

But there was a third cause of apprehension in the proclamations of Elizabeth, with regard to the increase of people in London, which we seem rather to have shut our eyes against. It has been one of those things which it is not pleasant to look upon. It has not made to itself a loud voice, like that of the rogues about Queen Elizabeth's coach. It has not been an imaginary evil, like that of the fancied disproportion between the demand and the supply of food. The proclamation complains of "great multitudes of people inhabiting in small rooms, whereof many be very poor, heaped up together, and in a sort smothered with many families of children in one house." This is an evil which exists up to the present hour. If the legislators of the time of Elizabeth had understood how to correct the evil, they would have encouraged building in the suburbs, instead of legislating against the local extension of London. We occasionally sweep away the wretched dens, hidden in back courts and alleys, where the poor are in a sort smothered; but neither do we make any provision for them, by building habitations fit for their reception. One of the great improvements of our streets that has long been contemplated, is the opening of a road from the' east end of Oxford Street direct to Holborn, without passing through the narrow and sinuous entrance by St. Giles's Church. The district which would be required to be destroyed is one of the most densely populated in London. Few of our readers know of its existence, fewer have ever ventured through it. It is familiarly known by the names of the Rookery and the Holy Land. A distinguished architect, who has also the higher distinction of being a most benevolent man, thus described it in 1834:-"The unutterable abominations of it can only be conceived by those who, in the exercise of charity, or in quest of

crime, have been forced to become familiar with its recesses. It is indeed the retreat of wretchedness, the nest of disease, and at once the nursery and sanctuary of vice. A very short excursion into this place will be enough to convince any one, through the medium of every sense, that it was built before the present wholesome regulations respecting building and cleansing were in force; and no part of the town can more strongly attest the imperfections of the law on the head of drainage. Indeed, there is scarcely a single sewer in any part of it; so that here, where there is the greatest accumulation of filth, there is the least provision made for its removal."* But Mr. Smirke did not propose to drive the plough of civic improvement over the greater part of this district, without providing such buildings for the future reception of the inhabitants as would wonderfully increase their comforts and the safety of the whole community. The great Plague of 1665 broke out in St. Giles's. The plague districts of that day are now fever districts. Independently of the general want of drainage in such neighbourhoods, the inmates of each house are "smothered up" in a manner that appears totally irreconcilable with the general civilization of the capital, and with the practical benevolence which is at work to mitigate the evils which nothing but a universally improved state of society can wholly eradicate. Mr. Smirke gives an example (and we have reason to believe, from other sources of information, that this was not a very extraordinary case) of one house, consisting of nine small rooms, being occupied by eleven men, thirteen women, and thirty children. One room on the underground-floor held one man, one woman, and five children. Two rooms on the ground-floor contained two men, two women, and eight children. Two on the first floor were stuffed with two men, three women, and five children. Two on the second floor were smothered up with three men, four women, and six children. Two garrets completed the horrible mountain of misery, indecency, and disease, with three men, three women, and six children. These poor squalid families collectively paid to the landlord of the house a daily rent amounting to nearly one hundred a year. Mr. Smirke says, "The poorest vagrant now pays sixpence per night for leave to lie down on a wretched pallet in some foul chamber in St. Giles's, with a dozen or more forlorn beings like himself; and a workman is obliged to pay from three shillings to four shillings per week for the hire of a single room, in which he, his wife, and perhaps a numerous family, are condemned to live day and night." The remedy suggested by Mr. Smirke is a very obvious one-for the government, or, what is perhaps better, for private speculators, to build in the suburbs airy and commodious lodging-houses, for the class of persons who inhabit such places as the Rookery; with common means of warmth, common kitchens, common grounds for exercise and recreation. The scheme is a noble one,-and it is a practicable one,—it would pay-the consideration which must always prevail, and which should always prevail, in the decision upon projects which involve a large and enduring expenditure of capital. In the districts we have described, and in many others of a similar nature, there are lodging-houses for persons who when they rise in the morning know not where they are to sleep: "They generally consist of six or eight small rooms, each of which often contains six beds; and it is no uncommon circumstance for sixty persons to be sleeping in one of these

Suggestions for the Architectural Improvement of the Western Part of London. By Sydney Smirke. p. 56.

loathsome abodes. For the use of these wretched beds (if such they may be termed) fourpence or sixpence is required per night; and it is a fact familiar to the parish officers, that great properties have been, and still are, accumulated in this way." Mr. Smirke would construct dormitories for this class of persons, in suitable parts of each parish. The rooms would much resemble the wards of Chelsea Hospital. One such building, containing eighty-four beds or compartments, could be erected for 2400/.; and if each compartment were let at twopence per night, an annual rental would be produced of 252., being ten and a half per cent. upon the outlay. There would be difficulties, no doubt, in effecting such changes, -in part arising from the indisposition of any great body of the people, accustomed to habits producing even positive suf fering to themselves, towards a change to other habits which are to work out for them comfort, and happiness, and respectability. Another difficulty arising out of the congregation of any great mass of labourers in the suburbs would be the distance between their place of lodging and their occupation. The saving would, we have no doubt, provide such a working community with omnibuses to ride to their employ. But they would gladly walk. May such changes be effected in our day; and may those who would be the most benefited by them inscribe on the gates of some suburban palace for the poor, words that in our times would be more intelligible and more edifying than the inscriptions to the glory of Hicks's Hall or St. Giles's Pound, the Standard in Cornhill or Holborn Bars, Tyburn Turnpike or Hyde Park Corner,

"TWO MILES FROM THE Spot where tHE ROOKERY FORMERLY STOOD."

A HISTORY of the origin of important edifices would make an amusing and far from uninstructive work. In the strange variety of human motives that such a history would exhibit it would be almost difficult to say whether the habitual satirizers, or the lovers of their species, would find most matter for gratification. Are we asked for illustrations? Why, look where you will, and they rise innumerable to the eye. Let us pause, for instance, one moment upon the bridge immortalised by Wordsworth as the spot on which one of the finest of his sonnets was composed, commencing

"Earth has not anything to show more fair,”—

and, glancing over the scene it commemorates, notice the history of some of the most prominent of the buildings which line the shores of the river. First, there is the most magnificent of halls-that of Westminster; rich beyond expression with the historical memories attached to it: yet what was the original purpose of Westminster Hall? It was built by William Rufus to dine in! Farther on there is Somerset House, erected in a great measure from the plunder of some of the most ancient, and in every sense most sacred, edifices of the metropolis, such as the church of the ancient Knights of St. John of Jerusalem at Clerkenwell, and the cloisters and other portions of old St. Paul's, blown up with

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