m the
mass of hoardings announcing the respective virtues of Venus Soap and
Nestles' Milk. To the Londoner this is probably obvious, in which case the
virtues of this specific form of advertising might be expected to be
considerably curtailed.

One who was curious of inspecting contrasting elements might have done
worse than to take an outside "garden seat" on a Stratford and Bow
omnibus, at Oxford Circus, and riding--for sixpence all the way--_via_
Regent Street, Pall Mall, Trafalgar Square, Strand, Fleet Street, St.
Paul's, past the Mansion House and the Bank, Royal Exchange, Cornhill,
Leadenhall Street, Aldgate, Whitechapel Road, Mile End, to Stratford.

The convenient, if ungraceful, cab had completely superseded the old
pair-horse hackney-coaches in London in general use previous to 1850.
According to the returns of the day, there were 6,793 of the modern
single-horse hackney-coaches in the metropolis altogether, of two
different kinds, "four-wheelers" and "hansoms," which took their name from
the patentee. The "four-wheelers" are the more numerous; they have two
seats and two doors; they carry four persons, and are entirely enclosed.
The "hansoms" have seating capacity for but two, and, though convenient
and handy beyond any other wheeled thing until the coming of the
automobile, the gondola of London was undeniably dangerous to the
occupant, and ugly withal, two strongly mitigating features.

Of the great event of Dickens' day, which took place in London, none was
greater or more characteristic of the devotion of the British people to
the memory of a popular hero than the grand military funeral of the
Right Honourable Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
(November, 1852). Certainly no military pageant of former times--save,
possibly, the second funeral of Napoleon--was so immeasurably of, and for,
the people. By this time most of the truly great of England's roll of fame
had succumbed, died, and were buried with more or less ostentation or
sincere display of emotion, but it remained for Wellington--a popular hero
of fifty years' standing--to outrival all others in the love of the people
for him and his works. He died at Walmer Castle on the Kent coast.

[Illustration: INTERIOR OF ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL DURING THE DUKE OF
WELLINGTON'S FUNERAL.]

His body lay there in state, at Chelsea Hospital and in St. Paul's
Cathedral, before it was finally laid to rest in the marble sarcophagus
which is se