ut as
the centre of excitement, and, as the people fondly fancy, of enjoyment.
The Empire and the commercial relations of England draw representatives
of trading communities or subject races from all parts of the globe, and
the faces and costumes of the Hindoo, the Parsi, the Lascar, and the
ubiquitous Chinaman, mingle in the motley crowd with the merchants of
Europe and America. The streets of London are, in this respect, to the
modern, what the great Place of Tyre must have been to the ancient
world. But pile Carthage on Tyre, Venice on Carthage, Amsterdam on
Venice, and you will not make the equal, or anything near the equal, of
London. Here is the great mart of the world, to which the best and
richest products are brought from every land and clime, so that if you
have put money in your purse you may command every object of utility or
fancy which grows or is made anywhere, without going beyond the circuit
of the great cosmopolitan city. Parisian, German, Russian, Hindoo,
Japanese, Chinese industry is as much at your service here, if you have
the all-compelling talisman in your pocket, as in Paris, Berlin, St.
Petersburg, Benares, Yokohama or Pekin. That London is the great
distributing centre of the world is shown by the fleets of the carrying
trade of which the countless masts rise along her wharves and in her
docks. She is also the bank of the world. But we are reminded of the
vicissitudes of commerce and the precarious tenure by which its empire
is held when we consider that the bank of the world in the middle of the
last century was Amsterdam.

The first and perhaps the greatest marvel of London is the commissariat.
How can the five millions be regularly supplied with food, and
everything needful to life, even with such things as milk and those
kinds of fruit which can hardly be left beyond a day? Here again we see
reason for concluding that though there may be fraud and scamping in the
industrial world, genuine production, faithful service, disciplined
energy, and skill in organization cannot wholly have departed from the
earth. London is not only well fed, but well supplied with water and
well drained. Vastly and densely peopled as it is, it is a healthy city.
Yet the limit of practicable extension seems to be nearly reached. It
becomes a question how the increasing multitude shall be supplied not
only with food and water but with air.

There is something very impressive in the roar of the vast city. It is a