“The bread to this enormous quantity of sack is represented by 2,500 bakers, 1,700 butchers, not including pork butchers, 2,600 tea dealers and grocers, 1,260 coffee-room keepers, nearly 1,500 dairy-men, and 1,350 tobacconists.  To look after the digestion of this enormous amount of food upwards of 2,400 duly licensed practitioners, surgeons and physicians are daily running to and fro through this mighty metropolis, whose patients, in due course of time and physic, are handed over to the tender mercies of 500 undertakers.  Nearly 3,000 boot and shoe-makers give their aid to keep our feet dry and warm, while 2,950 tailors do as much for the rest of our bodies.  The wants of the fairer portion of the population are supplied, by 1,080 linen drapers, 1,500 milliners and dressmakers; 1,540 private schools take charge of their children; and 290 pawn-brokers’ shops find employment and profit out of the reverses, follies, and vices of the community.  It is said that 700,000 cats are kept in London, to maintain whom large part of the 3,000 horses which die every week is sold by cat’s-meat vendors.  About 520,000 (1873) houses give shelter to upwards of three millions of people, whose little differences are aggravated or settled by upwards of 3,000 attorneys and 3,900 barristers.

“The spiritual wants of this mighty aggregate of human souls are cared for by more than 2,000 clergymen and dissenting ministers, who respectively preside over 620 churches and 423 chapels, of which latter buildings the Independents have 121, the Baptists 100, the Wesleyans 77, the Roman, Catholics about 90, whereas in 1808 they had but 13, the Calvinists and, English Presbyterians 10 each, the Quakers 7, and the Jews 10; the numerous other sects being content with numbers varying from one to five each.  To wind up with the darkest part of the picture, the metropolis contains on an average 129,000 paupers.”

On my way to London, I fell in company with a young gentleman who was well acquainted in the metropolis, and who gave me much valuable information, and assisted me in establishing myself in a central location, where excursions to all sections could be conveniently made.  This was “King’s Cross Station,” the terminus of the Great Northern Railway, and one of the principal stations of the Metropolitan (or Underground) Railroad; besides, it is in the heart of the great city.  We reached it by the Underground Railway from Paddington, the terminus of the Great Western Railway.  When we came up out of the earth at Kings Cross, I saw a busy-ness such as I had never seen before.  My friend went with me a short distance to point out a street where private rooms could be rented.

The tourist who wants to make the most of his time must never engage to board at his lodging-place, as it will be very inconvenient and at a sacrifice of much time, to return thither for his meals.  The most economical way is to have a room either at a hotel or at a private house, and to take the meals at the numerous restaurants, one of which can be reached anywhere in five minutes.