Palace and Hovel; Or, Phases of London Life

WHY Londoners should presume to sneer at the morality of the volatile Parisians, has always been a sore puzzle to me. During the past fifteen years, sharp observers of society i...

DIRECTLY in front of the gallery where I am sitting, is the Reporter's Gallery. There are fifteen boxes for their use to take notes in, each reporter sitting separately from his...

THE sun has risen and set for a thousand years on its gray walls; the grime and verdure of a thousand years have cemented its hoary stones; nations have grown and decayed; dynas...

THIS is the Pantheon of England's Greatest Dead. As I stand here under the groined roof of this vast and glorious Nave, with the sunbeams streaming in through rose windows, and...

THE Bank of England is the greatest moneyed institution in the world. It is situated in the very heart of the City of London, opposite the Royal Exchange and the Mansion House,...

VERY strange sights are seen in London. No city that I have ever visited will compare with London for the number of its street peddlers, hawkers, booth proprietors, open-air per...

FINDING it necessary to have a companion with me who had a perfect knowledge of the English Metropolis, I paid a visit to the headquarters of the police in the Old Jewry, and pr...

AS I passed down the towing path toward the stone house where the Harvard crew were resting, I saw the blue blades of four slender oars elevated above the crowd, and passing thr...

SHOE lane hath a very unromantic sound for a locality. It does not smell of the aristocracy. It hath not even a slight favor of the Landed Gentry, and no one could possibly take...

THERE is a wide, short street, or rather road, in the heart of London. The buildings are mean, the people who cluster against their doorways and in the alleys and courts that br...

SELDOM--perhaps not twice in a hundred years, had such a night of excitement been known in London as that which ushered in the morning of the Twenty-Seventh of August, 1869, the...

WE were standing on the smooth, grassy lawn, at Goodwood, a wandering American and the writer, strangers in a strange land, with the bustle and uproar which are always adjuncts...

THE aggregate of time, labor, and expenditure, necessary to provide three millions and a half of inhabitants with food, in a city like London, is something beyond comprehension....

VERY singular is the appearance of Leicester square, where are the resorts and lodgings of the foreign colonists of London. It is the dirtiest and darkest square in the city, wi...

WE cannot conceive of any greater contrast than that which exists between the wretchedness and squalor of the lodging houses, and the splendor and refined elegance, combined wit...

The strangest kind of a fascination hung over me as I looked at its Gate, cut in the deep wall like the entrance to a rocky cave. The spiked sill spoke of gibbets, the bars and...

GOING east through Oxford street, when you get near High Holborn, there is a narrow thoroughfare called Dean street. Turn down this and it will bring you to Carlisle street, a s...

ONE hundred and thirty years ago, infanticide and desertion of children, were twin crimes, very prevalent among English women of the humbler and lower classes. The dull, twaddli...

ENGLISH literature is one of the mainstays of our present civilization. Wherever the English language is spoken or understood, or wherever English thought predominates, English...

THERE can be no doubt but that London is a city much given to amusement, and I question if there can be found another city which spends more money and with a better grace, to su...

It is a curious history of crime and bloodshed, of dishonor, perjury, and harlotry, this history of the Monarchs of England, since the days of William the Norman, who had three...

IF you leave King William Street just at the foot of London Bridge, and turn to the left, you will find your way into a grouping of streets, narrow and steep, a few only of whic...

"WHY, Sir, I do think the times 'ave changed a great deal, but I am afeered they will change wuss nor ever agin. They do say as how Gladstone has, wen he likes, a will of his ow...

LONDON is studded with palaces some of which were constructed by Royalty itself--some of which were confiscated by royalty, and others again were bought by royalty from the nobl...

ABOUT ten o'clock in the evening, the rain, which had been gathering all day, came down in bucketfuls. The gutters ran like little rivers, and on Lothbury and the Poultry, and o...

METROPOLITAN Life has its religious phases, also. London contains about 410,000 dwelling-houses, places of business, and public buildings, and in this vast agglomeration of bric...

IT is a quarter past eleven o'clock and the Haymarket is full of people--men and women jostling each other, many of both sexes being intoxicated; and beggars solicit us at every...

FROM Windsor Castle the view is one of the finest in England. A vast panorama extending as far as the eye can reach. All flat--the faint, bare, blue horizontal line, scarcely di...

ON Great Russell street, Bloomsbury square, is the British Museum, one of the chief glories of the English metropolis, and an institution of which every Londoner is deservedly p...

ONE night, having made an appointment with one of the Scotland Yard detectives, I met him as I had promised, punctually, at the India House, which is situated at the junction of...

THERE are two places well worth seeing in London. One is the Central Criminal Court or "Old Bailey" as it is usually called, situated next door to Newgate, and the "Lord Mayor's...

AFTER leaving the Old Jewry Lane and passing up Cheapside, we came into the Poultry just as the rain had ceased, and as great rifts in the masses of fog were breaking through th...

IT had been a stormy night in the London streets. In the Strand the shopkeepers' assistants were hurriedly fastening the shutters upon the windows of their masters' shops, eager...

A MOST venerable relic--none more so in London--is the Domesday Book, which I was allowed to inspect one day while sauntering through the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey. Thi...

BEYOND comparison London exceeds all other cities of Europe for the number of its poor, and the misery and suffering of those who individually make up the gross totals in work-h...

Nothing can be more grateful to the eye of the stranger sojourning in the English metropolis, than the frequent views which he encounters of smooth bits of lawn, upon which larg...

WHEN a foot passenger crossing London Bridge looks down the river to the left, he cannot help noticing a little cluster of masts tapering upward from a series of small hulks and...

VERY different estimates have been made as to the extent of the Social Evil in London, but that made some fifteen months ago by the Right Reverend Dr. Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxf...

LONDON may well be proud of her bridges. Fifteen of the finest structures of their kind in the world span with mighty and enduring arches, the surface of the Thames; in a distan...

THEREe are four Inns of Court in London and thirteen Inns of Chancery. The Inns of Court are the Middle Temple, Inner Temple, Lincoln's Inn, and Gray's Inn. The Inns of Chancery...

GREAT as London may believe itself to be in works of benevolence and philanthropy, there are spots in that mighty city which no one should visit without an officer of the law in...

ONE of the queerest old rookeries in London is the little old edifice in Great Knight-Rider street, just back of St. Paul's Churchyard, with its nest of courts and its ancient q...

IT is an undeniable fact, that the English are the greatest beer-drinking people in the world. The assertion may be disputed in favor of the Germans (and their beverage, lager b...

THE best expression of Protestant Ecclesiastical art in England, and perhaps in the world, is manifested in St. Paul's Cathedral, London. It is a stupendous temple rather than a...

IN the civilized world perhaps such another sight cannot be witnessed, as that which greets the eye from the great Cupola of St. Paul's, when the view is taken on a bright summe...

HIDDEN in the bosoms of the sewers of every Great City lies a world of romance. The secrets of thousands of human beings, with their hopes and aspirations, their defeats and dis...

THE Thames, the great river of England, which enriches London with the cargoes of its thousand ships, weekly, rises in the southeastern slopes of the Cotswold Hills. For about t...

"Old Smudge," the Cabby--A "Hansom" Cab--Rates of Fares--A Convivial Pup--The Rat Pit--The Terrier "Skid"--The Match for £50--Skid Slaughters a Hundred Rats in 8:40--Paddy's "Go...

Vagabonds in Kingly Robes--Prince of Wales and his Personal Friends--The Prince and the London Brewer as Firemen--Lord Carington as a Coachman--His Cowardly Assault upon Greenvi...

Goodwood Races--Men of the Turf--Swarms of People--The Barouche and Four--Beauty of its Occupants--"Anonyma" and the Chestnut Mare--"Mabel Grey" and "Baby Hamilton"--The Race fo...

Reporters' Gallery--Dr. Johnson taking Notes--The Speaker and his Wig--Important Personages--First Lord of the Admiralty--Peers in the Gallery--Gladstone's Early Life--The Eloqu...

On Board the Press Boat--The Harvard Crew--Loring's Condition--Simmons the Pride of the Crew--The Oxford Crew--"Little Corpus," the Coxswain--The Start--Harvard Leads--Burnham's...

Its Origin--Laying the Foundation--Reading Room--Departments of the Museum--The Galleries and Saloons--The Three Libraries--What can be seen--Nelson's Monument--Pictures and Wor...

Leicester Square--Foreign Cafe in Coventry Street--The Abode of Sir Joshua Reynolds--The Residence of William Hogarth--Royal Alhambra Palace--The Great Social Evil--"Wotten Wow"...

The Great Parade Ground--"Scott's" in the Haymarket--Oysters in every Style--Prostitutes and Abandoned Women--The Midnight Mission--Rev. Baptist Noel--Cremorne Gardens at Chelse...

Its Dimensions and Architectural Construction--Its Wealth and Immense Revenues--The Burial-Place of the Kings and Queens--Magnificence of their Tombs--Tomb of Shakespeare--Tomb...

Regent's and Hyde Parks--Dimensions of the Public Parks and Gardens--What they Contain--Bathing in Hyde Park--Richmond Park with its Forests and Hunting Grounds--Hampton Court P...

Lord Carington--Lady Mordaunt, Divorce Proceedings, and Interesting Testimony--Love Letters of the Prince--Duke of Hamilton--The Fastest Young Man in England--The Marquis of Wat...

Half-Penny Soup House--The Little Cast-aways and Waifs Provided for--Visit to the Work-House of St Martin's--The Workers' Uniform--The Old Pauper--Daily Rations--Schools--Trades...

The English a Great Beer-Drinking People--Amount of Exports--Barclay and Perkins--A Princely Firm--Cats on Guard--The House of Hanbury, Buxton & Co.--Great Porter Tun--Libraries...