Page:The National Gazetteer - A Topographical Dictionary of the British Islands, Volume 2.djvu/690

Rh. LONDON. 682 LONDON. Regent-street, Bond-street, Piccadilly, St. James's- ptreet, and their more immediate vicinities, and during the " London season," which is at its height during the months of May, June, and July, these thoroughfares are thronged with the- carriages of the nobility and gentry making their purchases, while innumerable hired ve- hicles and pedestrians swell the crowd of those who are following their various pursuits of business or pleasure. The Strand also possesses a long line of shops, which is continued along Cheapside and Cornhill, and here also a vast amount of business is transacted, and a never- ending stream of traffic flows through them at all hours of the day. There are two Arcades in London (a small one in New Oxford-street being scarcely worthy of mention), called the Burlington and the Lowther. The former runs from Burlington Gardens at the southern end of Bond-street, into Piccadilly, and con- sists of shops of modistes and sellers of various articles of ornament or use suitable for the upper classes of society ; while the latter, which leads from the back of the church of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields into the West Strand, more resembles a bazaar, and is composed almost entirely of shops in which are displaced a great variety of toys, cheap jewellery, fancy wares, and articles adapted for less wealthy and aristocratic pur- chasers. The governmental portion of the metropolis lies in and about Westminster, where are the houses of parliament and all the more important public offices connected with the political ordering of the state. The City is occupied by the monetary and commercial classes, and contains the Bank of England, the Royal and Stock Exchanges, and the innumerable banks, exchanges, warehouses, offices, and various places of business where transactions of enormous magnitude take place daily, and thousands upon thousands of merchants, traders, and every branch of the commercial community are busy, not only in adding to their own resources, but in developing and extending the indepen- dent position which England maintains among foreign nations. Further eastward also a considerable quantity of business is transacted, and vast numbers of the lower orders earn their living by all sorts of trades and occu- pations earned on by communities living literally by the sweat of their brow, and in localities where the wealthier and more refined classes seldom or never penetrate. The legal quarters are principally near Iho Temple, Lincoln's Inn, Bedford-row, Gray's Inn, and Chancery-lane ; the medical in or near Saville-row, Burlington Gardens. In Snitalfields and Bcthnal Green the silk and velvet weavers are located, being to a great extent descendants of French families who Bought a refuge in this country after the edict of Nantes. Watchmakers and manufacturing jewellers abound in Clerkenwell ; and sugar-bakers in White- chapel. The tanners and skin-dressers are principally located in Bermondsey; the potters and glass-makers in Lambeth ; the carriage-builders in and about Long Acre ; the toy-makers at Hoxtoii ; the shipwrights, anchor and boiler makers, riggers, and iron-founders in Blackball, Poplar, Millwall, and the Isle of Dogs. The lower classes of the Jewish population live principally about Whitechapel and the Minories ; the fashion- able tailors, army accoutrement makers, and court- milliners and dressmakers about Regent-street, Bond- street, St. James's-street, and Hanover-square ; the publishers in the streets and lanes about Paternoster- row ; the principal gazette and newspaper offices are in the Strand and Fleet-street, and the chief newspaper agents in Catherine-street, Strand. The costermongers are chiefly in Whitechapel and Bethnal Green, the New Cut, Lambeth, and Somers Town ; and there are nume- rous other classes who seem to congregate chiefly in one particular quarter or another whole colonies, so to speak, of the same crafts or profession being generally found to establish themselves in certain portions of the metropolis. Of course such a motley collection of various grades, professions, and trades, and the numerous exi- gencies of so vast a metropolis, require separate govern- ment and management. Accordingly each of them is under some kind of jurisdiction which regulates their proceedings with a view to the good of the public. Thus in all matters relating to the trade of London the chief authority rests with the lord mayor and the public com- panies whose " halls" or places of meeting are in the Cit; The lord mayor, who is elected annually, is the chii magistrate of the City. He has allotted to him, as hii official residence, the " Mansion House," which is a largo building at the S.E. end of the Poultry, and near the. Bank of England. Here he gives his state banquets a the members of the corporation, and to persons of emi- nence in political or social circles, and, in fact, to all those whose public or private position entitles them to partake of the hospitality which it is part of the lord mayor's duty to provide. For all this he receives a salary of about 6,500 per annum, but as the expenses cf the' office are reckoned at about 15,000 it is evident tr- 1 the chief city officer must be always a man of consid' able wealth. The City companies spring from c collective trading company or guild, which in course time became divided according to the respective ocf pations of its members, and obtained charters to previ those who did not belong to them from competing w them in the City precincts. The place of meeting^ these companies or guilds was the Guildhall, whi stands at the foot of King-street, and was built in 1411, since which it has been greatly improved and enlarged. Here the ordinary business of the corpora^' tion is transacted, legal trials take place, various public meetings are held, banquets are given, hustings erected at election times, and it has also a largo and valuable library attached to it. The guilds themselves, or com- panies as they are now styled, are at the present time corporate charitable institutions, using the large funds which have accrued to them for teaching and apprenticing the sons and daughters of their more necessitous brethren M rather than associations for limiting and restricting the tradesmen of the City. There are in all 81 companies, and of these the following 12 are styled the " Great Livery Companies:" the Mercers', Grocers', Drapers', Fishmongers', Goldsmiths', Skinners', Merchant Tay- lors', Haberdashers', Sailers', Ironmongers', Vintners', and Clothworkerts'. To some of these, as in the ca Ihe Merchant Taylors' and the Fishmongers', persons < " the highest rank and station belong, and in all of tha there are many individuals of great wealth and influent* from whom are chosen the aldermen representing th various wards into which (he City is divided. The local government of the City is vested in the lord 11 and corporation, the latter body consisting of the a men, members of the court of common council, am; court of common hall. There are various offi attached to these courts, as the common-serjcant, City remembrancer, the sword-bearer, the City chaml lain, and others, all of whom receive liberal salaries, take part in the procession called the " Lord May Show," which takes place on the 9th November aunu The city revenues are derived from real property, to and duties levied on coals, fruit, the stamping weights, rents arising from markets, and various nther sources, which render it excessively wealthy, its 1 annual receipts amounting to nearly 600,000. ; penses, however, are very heavy, as it maintains :; police force, several valuable schools and charities, and pays a large sum annually for improvements a;. ral purposes in various parts of the metropoli the precincts of the City. The City of London four members to parliament, and its representativi invariably chosen from among those who, i< mercantile or commercial position, are lie.-. advance its interests, or who, from their distir the political world, confer alike an honour and upon the electors. The borough of South wark (which comprehends 6 parishes) is also under the juris. 1 the lord mayor, who is empowered to govern deputy, or high bailiff. It returns two mn parliament, has its own county court and poli and its population consists almost entirely of f keepers, merchants, and manufacturers. The i