one of these tradesmen shall
be nay, _must_ be, the best of their class, or at least the best that
can be obtained; and for this purpose, the inducements of high wages are
held out to workmen generally, and their competition for employment
enables the manufacturer to secure the most skilful. It is just the same
with a broken-down constitution, or a lawsuit: the former shall be
placed under the care of a lung-doctor, a liver-doctor, a heart-doctor,
a dropsy-doctor, or whatever other doctor is supposed best able to
understand the case; each of these doctors shall have read lectures and
published books, and made himself known for his study and exclusive
attention to one of the "thousand ills that flesh is heir to:" the
latter shall go through the hands of dozens of men skilful in that
branch of the law connected with the particular injury. So it is with
every thing else of production, mechanical or intellectual, or both,
that London affords: the extent of the market permits the minute
division of labour, and the minute division of labour reacts upon the
market, raising the price of its produce, and branding it with the signs
of a legitimate superiority.

Hence the superior intelligence of working men, of all classes, high and
low, in the World of London; hence that striving after excellence, that
never-ceasing tendency to advance in whatever they are engaged in, that
so distinguishes the people of this wonderful place; hence the
improvements of to-day superseded by the improvements of to-morrow;
hence speculation, enterprize, unknown to the inhabitants of less
extended spheres of action.

Competition, emulation, and high wages give us an aristocracy of talent,
genius, skill, _tact_, or whatever you like to call it; but you are by
no means to understand that any of these aristocracies, or better
classes, stand prominently before their fellows _socially_, or, that one
is run after in preference to another; nobody runs after anybody in the
World of London.

In this respect, no capital, no country on the face of the earth,
resembles us; every where else you will find a leading class, giving a
tone to society, and moulding it in some one or other direction; a
predominating _set_, the pride of those who are _in_, the envy of those
who are _below_ it. There is nothing of this kind in London; here every
man has his own set, and every man his proper pride. In every set,
social or professional, there are great names, successful