E REPORTERS' GALLERY 43
THE LOBBY OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS DURING THE SESSION 64
OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT 70
A SUNDAY AT THE OBELISK 78
EXETER HALL 84
THE DERBY 95
VAUXHALL GARDENS 104
THE PENNY GAFF 111
RAG FAIR 117
THE COMMERCIAL ROAD AND THE COAL-WHIPPERS 124
THE STOCK EXCHANGE 135
THE LONDON HOSPITAL 145
PORTLAND PLACE 155
MARK LANE 166
PREACHING AT ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL 175
AN OMNIBUS YARD 187
THE NEW CATTLE MARKET 200
THE GOVERNMENT OFFICE 207
PATERNOSTER ROW 218

THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, FROM THE STRANGERS' GALLERY.

Not far from Westminster Abbey, as most of our readers know well, stands
the gorgeous pile which Mr. Barry has designed, and for which, in a
pecuniary sense, a patient public has been rather handsomely bled. Few
are there who have looked at that pile from the Bridge--or from the
numerous steamers which throng the river--or loitered round it on a
summer's eve, without feeling some little reverence for the spot haunted
by noble memories and heroic shades--where to this day congregate the
talent, the wealth, the learning, the wisdom of the land. It is true,
there are men--and that amiable cynic, Mr. Henry Drummond, is one of
them--who maintain that the House of Commons is utterly corrupt--that
there is not a man in that House but has his price; but we instinctively
feel that such a general charge is false--that no institution could exist
steeped in the demoralisation Mr. Drummond supposes--that his statement
is rather one of those ingenious paradoxes in which eccentric men
delight, than a sober exposition of the real truth. Mr. Drummond should
know better. A poor penny-a-liner of a bilious temperament, without a