ca, is
Tilbury Fort, a reminder of the glories of England's arms in the days of
Elizabeth. It may be said to be the real outpost of London. Here passing
from the "Lower Hope" into "Sea Reach," we fairly enter upon the estuary
of the Thames. Here the river has rapidly expanded into an arm of the sea,
having widened from two hundred and ninety yards at London Bridge to
perhaps four and a half miles at the "London Stone" by Yantlet Creek,
where the jurisdiction of the Corporation of London ends.

To the north the Essex shore trends rapidly away toward Yarmouth; to the
south straight to the eastern end of the English Channel, past the
historic Medway, with Gad's Hill Place and Higham.

Beyond is Strood, Rochester, Chatham, Maidstone, Canterbury, and
Broadstairs, and with the latter place one takes leave, as it were, of
England, Dickens, and his personal and literary associations therewith.

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS

London is not a single city, but rather a sequence or confederation of
cities. In its multifarious districts there is not only a division of
labour, but a classification of society--grade rising above grade,
separate yet blended--"a mighty maze, but not without a plan." Says one of
her most able and observing historians, "were we not accustomed to the
admirable order that prevails, we should wonder how it was preserved." The
regular supply of the various food markets alone is a truly wonderful
operation, including all the necessaries and, what the Londoner himself
supposes to be, all the luxuries of life. The method of distribution is
truly astonishing, and only becomes less so to the liver in the midst of
it all by reason of his varying degree of familiarity therewith. As to the
means of sustenance, no less than livelihood, of a great mass of its
population, that is equally a mystery. All among the lower classes are not
Fagins nor yet Micawbers. How do the poor live who rise in the morning
without a penny in their pockets? How do they manage to sell their labour
before they can earn the means of appeasing hunger? What are the
contrivances on which they hit to carry on their humble traffic? These and
similar questions are those which the economist and the city fathers not
only have been obliged to heed, but have got still greater concern
awaiting them ahead. Poverty and its allied crime, not necessarily
brutalized inherent criminal instinct, but crime nevertheless, are the
questions which have got to be me