Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/622

 616 LONDON and British possessions, and 27,793 vessels, of 3,295,107 tons, in the coastwise trade. The to- tal number of clearances was 18,895, of which 10,284 were in the coastwise trade. The im- ports of foreign and colonial merchandise were valued at 127,560,447, on which the customs revenue amounted to 10,103,085. The ex- ports of British produce amounted to 57,199,- 098. The exports to the United States in the year ending Sept. 30, 1871, amounted to 8,- 658,037; 1872, 8,671,985; 1873, 7,579,073. In 1873, 29 vessels, of 6,881 tons, were built here. The average number of ships in the port is 1,000, and in the docks 600 to 700. The emigrant traffic is considerable, 21,400 having left for New Zealand alone in the first six months of 1874; and a new emigrant bureau was recently opened in Blackwall. The leading manufacture of London is silk, which em- ploys over 100,000 persons, mostly females. The other principal articles made are tele- graph wires, carriages, clocks, watches, jew- elry, gold and silver plate, mathematical, sur- gical, and musical instruments, refined sugar, and particularly ale and porter. The l&rgest breweries are those of Barclay, Perkins, and co., Southwark, extending over 11 acres, and of Truman, Hanbury, Buxton, and co., Spital- fields ; the quantities of malt annually used in these establishments varies from 120,000 to 150,000 quarters, and in the other extensive breweries from 18,000 to 60,000. The tele- graph act of 1868 placed the electro-telegraphic system of the country under the control of the government. The central station is to be in the new general post office in St. Martin's-le- Grand, the most imposing of the recent addi- tions to city architecture. There are now over 400 telegraph offices in the metropolis, mostly post offices, and the metropolitan gallery at the central station is made the medium of, commu- nication between them all. The pneumatic des- patch tubes form an important adjunct to the telegraph system for carrying sheets of paper on which messages are written, and also consti- tute a sort of metropolitan parcels conveyance system. An improved method, extending the working of the same tube over several stations, has been in operation since 1871. The central station is connected with receiving offices in the principal centres of business. The em- ployees of the British post office department consisted in 1872 of more than 40,000 persons, of whom 10,000 were engaged in telegraph work, 12,000 were postmasters, 9.000 clerks, and 19,000 letter carriers, messengers, and sorters. Those engaged in London alone in- clude 5,000 in St. Martin's-le-Grand and 4,500 in the postal districts. Of the 20,600 post of- fices and public boxes in the United Kingdom, London possesses 1,500. The total number of post office telegrams from all the stations in the kingdom numbered 399,852 in the week ending Aug. 22, 1874. The number of letters delivered in the postal districts of London is over 6,000,000 annually, of newspapers over 70,000,000, and of book parcels about 8,000,- 000. The letter deliveries are numerous and admirably arranged all over the metropolis and its outskirts. The money order offices, also serving as savings banks, were 4,600 in the kingdom in 1872, and 14,000,000 orders were issued, to the extent of 24,000,000 ; the depositors in the post office savings banks numbered 1,440,000, and their aggregate de- posits were from 17,000,000 to 19,000,000. The expenditure of the post office in 1872 was 3,685,000, and the net revenue about 2,150,- 000. A large proportion of all these figures concerns London alone. A girdle of railways and a double circle of iron ways, chiefly un- derground, encompass London. The metro- politan or underground railway runs on a level with or below the gas pipes and water mains, and consists of 3^ m. of tunnels and cuttings from Paddington, near the Great Western ter- minus, to Moorgate, near the bank of England, running under the New road and other central thoroughfares. The trains run from early in the morning till midnight at intervals of 15 to 20 minutes, communicating at King's Cross station with the Great Northern terminus, and at Farringdon street with the prolongation line to the Chatham and Dover railway. Among the principal metropolitan and suburban rail- way lines are the Charing Cross, to the City and London bridge ; the West London, Ham- mersmith, and Metropolitan, from Finchley road to Victoria station; the Victoria, from Pimlico to Ludgate hill; the North London, Hampstead junction, and North and South- western junction, from Broad street, City, to Acton station beyond the Hammersmith sta- tion; the London and Blackwall; the Water- loo, to Eichmond ; and the East London, com- mencing at the Wapping end of the Thames tun- nel, and terminating at Deptford. The Metro- politan District railway, with many remark- able viaducts and similar works, runs parallel with the N. Thames embankment, extending from Tower hill to Westminster bridge. The Metropolitan and St. John's road extends from Baker street to within a mile of Hampstea^. The total number of railway stations in metro- politan districts has increased from 3 in 1838 to about 300 in 1874, and the aggregate traffic includes hundreds of millions of passengers and stupendous quantities of freight. The Great Eastern began in 1873 its enormous terminus at Broad street; the Midland railway has opened the large St. Pancras station ; the East London is engaged in tunnelling under the London docks; and other new termini are completed or projected. Street tramways, after meeting with a strenuous resistance, and still. opposed by the corporation of the City, were sanctioned by parliament in 1869 for various parts of the metropolis, and subsequently for others. The Thames tunnel, two miles below London bridge, connects Wapping on the left bank of the Thames with Eotherhithe. It consists of two arched passages, 1,200 ft. long,