Page:The National Gazetteer - A Topographical Dictionary of the British Islands, Volume 2.djvu/706

Rh LONDON. 698 LONDON. &c.). The trains, run at intervals of five and ten minutes from 5.18 a.m. to 12.5 midn. on week days; and from 7.55 a.m. to 10.35 a.m., and from 1.6 to 11.6p.m. on Sundays. Trains in connection with the Metropolitan run from Hammersmith and Kensington, and this line, when completed, will connect the E. and W. ends of the town, and have tranches where it is possible to the various great railway termini, so as to obviate the necessity, which now exists in so many instances, of passengers being compelled to undergo the trouble, expense, and delay of traversing a great part of London in cabs or omnibuses. At Earl- street, Blackfriars, it passes 30 feet below the London, Chatham, and Dover line, and will run under the new street to the Mansion House, and in a westerly direc- tion along the Thames embankment. This line will relieve the London and Brighton railway company's main line of the sole charge of the traffic to and from the Crystal Palace, and will use the high-level ter- minus which is just opposite the central transept of the palace. Several new railways, such as the Tottenham and Hampstead junction, and others, are in con- templation or progress in various directions of the metropolis and to the suburban districts. These, as well as the various alterations and improve- ments in the streets, are laid down as they occur in the maps and plans of London and its environs, which are constantly published. The main features, indeed, of the metropolis will, it may be expected, long re- main unchanged ; but tho continually increasing popu- lation, and the progress of science, lead to ceaseless innovations, and it is certain that each succeeding year will witness tho removal of old and the construction of new sites, the accomplishment of fresh sanitary and architectural plans in a word, every variety of change which may be required for the benefit and convenience of the inhabitants. The construction of railway bridges, or rather tubes, in the Borough, Camden and Kentish Towns, at Blackfriars, VauxhaU, Ludgate-hill, and else- where, has already considerably altered the appearance of many of the leading thoroughfares ; and the concen- tration of the law courts in tho site already marked out for the "Palace of Justice," between the S. side of Lincoln's Inn Fields and the Strand, the viaduct from 'Holborn to Snow-hill, the new street from the W. end of Oxford-street to Piccadilly, and various railway and other works already in progress or contemplation in all parts of London and its environs will sufficiently exem- plify tho nature of the changes that will constantly take place ; and parliament will, no doubt, during each session, have as many or more fresh schemes laid before it for the alteration and improvement both of the City and the West End as it has already sanctioned during the last few years. In the former the demand for space for offices, &c., is so great, on account of the immense quantity of ground required for proposed alterations that the value of land has risen in a proportion beyond all belief. 320 per annum rent has lately been asked and given for a small house let as offices in a court in Throgmorton-street, for which tho tenant has hitherto paid 80 ; and a piece of freehold ground, occupying a site of 2,600 square feet, in Cannon-street, at the corner of St. Swithin's-lane, has been sold for 30,600. The land to the W. of Temple-bar belongs principally to ten peers, viz. the Dukes of Norfolk, Bedford, and Portland, the Marquises of Exeter, Salisbury, Northampton, Westminster, and Camden, and the earls of Craven and of Portland, and the value of their estates is enormous. Many of them as the rents fall in compel their tenants either to quit or spend considerable sums of money in improving the houses and tenements which they occupy. Thus the ancient forms of street architecture are gradually disappearing, and even in old neighbourhoods the buildings are gradually assimilated to modern types and a style which is more adapted to meet the wants engendered by the increased wealth and means of comfort possessed by every class of the community. The metropolitan graveyards which exist in several parts of London have for some years been totally disused, intra- mural interments having been forbidden by Act of Pa liament. In their place suburban cemeteries, ornamo ally laid out and planted with trees, shrubs, and flowt are used for purposes of burial. Each has its own chaj and its officiating minister, and some of them cont tombs and monuments of much artistic merit, and ercc at a vast expense. Side by side with these, many morials to the dead strike the eye by the appropi simplicity of their design, or tho profuseness of the flo wt wreaths of " everlastings," or other tokens of affec which are placed near or upon them. The princ f cemeteries are, in the western district the Konsal occupying an area of about SO acres in the Harrow-road, about 2J miles from tho Paddington station of thu Great Western railway ; in the northern district tho Highgate, tho Abney Park at Stoko Newington, and the Great Northern at Colney Hatch; in the south- western district the Broinpton; in the north- the Paddington, on tho road from Kilbum to Willos- den ; in the north-eastern the Victoria Park ; in tho eastern the City of London and Tower Hamlets, in the Mile-eud-road ; in tho south-eastern the Nunhead, Peck- ham; and in the southern tho Norwood. Besides thci-e situated outside London, the first-named of th<-:. beyond the limits of tho metropolitan postal c! are the London Necropolis, at Woking, in Surrey ; the City of London Cemetery, at Ilford, in Essex ; tho Lambeth, at Tooting; the St. Mary Abbott's, Kensing- ton, at Hanwell ; and the Marylebone, the St. Pancnw, and the Islington, at Finchley. The Jews have their own burial grounds at South Hackney, Ball's Pond, Bromp- ton, Mile-end-road, and West Ham. The statistics of the newspaper press of London almost exceed belief. It has been calculated that 248,000 newspapers are issued daily, making an annual issue of 77,000^)00. If to these be added the annual issue of the weekly journali, which is upwards of 117,000,000, the total will amount to about 195,000,000 issued from the metropolitan press every year. The leading journal is the Times, t office of which is in Printing-house-square, Bl,-i. near Apothecaries' Hall. It has also a City < George-street, Mansion House. It employs a la most efficient staff of writers, reporters, conij &c., all of whom are liberally paid, and its proprietors have in several instances evinced the greatest i> not only in advocating cases of national and private distress, but in contributing largely to mitigate the misfortunes and privations of the sufferers. In the Captains' room at Lloyd's, and over the door of the chief office of the paper, are marble tablets commemo- rative of the benefit conferred by it upon tli mercial public by its exposure of a gang of swindlers ] in the celebrated case of " Bogle v. Lawson." A verdict was obtained against the Times, but its conduct was so highly appreciated that a subscription wn to indemnify the proprietors for their expense sum contributed, however, they generously refused to I accept, but founded with it the "Times' scholarship " in the City of London school. The principal .-, fashionable intelligence is the Morning Post, which has its chief office in Wellington-street, Strand, and its City office in Cornhill. The great paper for tin tisement of businesses of all sorts to be sold, &< Morning Advertiser, which, as it is taken in at al public-houses and places of entertainment, i.s called the " publicans' paper." Its office is in Fleet-stre< principal offices of the Daily News are in Bouverie-.'-trcet, Fleet-street ; those of the Morning Herald in Sh those of the Daily Telegraph (which was the fir- penny papers) in Fleet-street and Pcterborouu This paper has the largest circulation of any London papers, its daily issue reaching to about 150,0( copies as against about 55,000 of tho Tim. offices of the Morning Star are in Fleet-str< Dorset-court; those of the Standard in Fli i '-.- Shoe-lane ; of the Public Ledger in St. Dunstan's-^MM of the Commercial Daily List in Mincing-lane ; an Manchester Guardian in Cannon-row. Tho office evening papers are those of the Krprcss in 1!