he father fretfully
served out his sentence for debt.

Of all the prisons of that day it may be stated that they were hotbeds of
immorality, where children herded with hoary criminals; where no sanitary
laws were recognized; where vermin swarmed and disease held forth, and
where robbery, tyranny, and cruelty, if not actually permitted, was at
least winked at or ignored.

In 1829 Sir Robert Peel brought into force his new police establishment,
an event which had not a little to do with the betterment of social life
of the day.

"The whole metropolitan district was formed into five local divisions,
each division into eight sections, and each section into eight beats, the
limits of all being clearly defined and distinguished by letters and
numbers; the force itself was divided into companies, each company having
one superintendent, four inspectors, sixteen sergeants, and one hundred
and forty-four police constables, being also sub-divided into sixteen
parts, each consisting of a sergeant and nine men." Incalculable as the
boon was in the repression of crime, the Corporation of the City of London
could not be persuaded, until several years afterward, to follow such an
example, and give up their vested interests in the old system of watchmen.
The police system, as remodelled by Sir Robert Peel in 1829, was, of
course, the foundation of the present admirable body of constabulary, of
which the London "Bobby" must be admitted by all as ranking at the very
head of his contemporaries throughout the civilized world. Certainly no
more affable and painstaking servants of the public are anywhere to be
found; they are truly the "refuge of the inquiring stranger and timid
women."

The London policeman, then, is essentially a product of our own times; a
vast advance over the peripatetic watchman of a former day, and quite
unlike his brother on the Continent, who has not only to keep the peace,
but act as a political spy as well. Perhaps it is for this reason that the
London policeman is able to exhibit such devotion and affability in the
conduct of his duties. Surely no writer or observer has ever had the
temerity to assail the efficiency of the London "Peeler" or "Bobby," as he
now exists.

No consideration or estimate of middle-class London would be complete
without mention of that very important factor in its commissariat--beer,
or its various species, mild or bitter, pale or stale. Your true Cockney
East-Ender, however, likes