115
DR JOHNSON'S TAVERN 123
THE SPORTING PUBLIC-HOUSE 131
THE PUBLIC-HOUSE WITH A BILLIARD-ROOM 137
THE RESPECTABLE PUBLIC-HOUSE 143
NIGHT-HOUSES 149
HIGHBURY BARN 160
BOXING NIGHT 166
THE MOGUL 173
CALDWELL'S 180
CREMORNE 191
THE COSTERMONGER'S FREE-AND-EASY 200
THE POLICE-COURT 208
THE EAGLE TAVERN 218
THE LUNATIC ASYLUM 227

INTRODUCTION.

It is said of a stranger who came to London for the first time, and took
up his quarters in one of the most crowded city streets, that he remained
standing at the door the whole of the first day of his London existence,
because he waited until the crowd had gone. A man, says Max Schlesinger,
who would do that, ought to rise and go to bed with the owl. The owl is
the symbol of wisdom; for once I would prevail upon the reader to do as
the owls do, and become wise as they. You may live at Clapham all your
life, come into the city every day, attend on a gospel ministry, as the
slang phrase is,--for it is not only wicked people that talk slang,--and
know no more of London than the British public do of Timbuctoo.

Think of what London is. At the last census there were 2,362,236 persons
of both sexes in it; 1,106,558 males, of whom 146,449 were under 5 years
of age; and 1,255,678 females, of whom 147,173 were under 5 years of age.
The unmarried males were 679,380, ditto females 735,871; the married men
were 399,098, the wives 409,731; the widowers were 37,080, the widows
110,076. On the night of the census there were 28,598 husbands whose
wives were not with them, and 39,231 wives mourning their absent lords.
In 1856 the number of children born in London was 86,833, only one in 25
of which is illegitimate; in the same period 56,786 persons died. The
Registrar-General assumes that, with the additional births, and by the
fact of soldiers and sailors returning from the seat of war, and of
persons engaged in peaceful pursuits settling in the capital, sustenance,
clothing, and house accommodation must now be found in London for about
60,000 inhabit