Aldersgate-street, and Goswell-street-road; 2d.  From St. Paul’s, &c., to Tottenham court-road, Crown street, and St. Martin’s-lane; 3d.  From Tottenham-court-road, &c., westward, 4th.  The entire south side of the river.  At the head of each district is a foreman, who never leaves it unless acting under the superior orders of Mr. Braidwood, the superintendent or general-in-chief, whose head-quarters are in Watling-street.

In comparison with the great Continental cities such a force seems truly insignificant.  Paris, which does not cover a fifth part of the ground of London, and is not much more than a third as populous, boasts 800 sapeurs-pompiers:  we make up, however, for want of numbers by activity.  Again, our lookout is admirable:  the 6,000 police of the metropolis, patrolling every alley and lane throughout its length and breadth, watch for a fire as terriers watch at rat-holes, and every man is stimulated by the knowledge, that if he is the first to give notice of it at any of the stations, it is half a sovereign in his pocket.  In addition to the police, there are the thousand eager eyes of the night cabmen and the houseless poor.  It is not at all uncommon for a cabman to earn four or five shillings of a night by driving fast to the different stations and giving the alarm, receiving a shilling from each for the “call.”

In most Continental cities a watchman takes his stand during the night on the topmost point of some high building, and gives notice by either blowing a horn, firing a gun, or ringing a bill.  In Germany the quarter is indicated by holding out towards it a flag by day, and a lantern at night.  It immediately suggests itself that a sentinel placed in the upper gallery of St. Paul’s would have under his eye the whole Metropolis, and could make known instantly, by means of an electric wire, the position of a fire, to the head station at Watling-street, in the same manner as the Americans do in Boston.  This plan is, however, open to the objection, that London is intersected by a sinuous river, which renders it difficult to tell on which bank the conflagration is raging.  Nevertheless we imagine that the northern part of the town could be advantageously superintended from such a height, whilst the southern half might rest under the surveillance of one of the tall shot-towers on that bank of the Thames.  The bridges themselves have long been posts of observation, from which a large portion of the river-side property is watched.  Not long ago there was a pieman on Londonbridge, who eked ont a precarious existence by keeping a good look-out up and down the stream.