Comparative Account : Population of Great Britain. 365 



miles in circuit. The walls of London are of Roman foundation j 

 and the population crowded within them," continues Mr. Rickman, 

 " would now be justly deemed excessive, as was proved by frequent 

 pestilence and an unusual rate of mortality at all times ; but the great 

 fire which consumed more than the entire city within the walls in the 

 year 16G6, seems to have precluded pestilence in the renovated 

 city*." 



In the beginning ot the last century, Mr. Rickman considers the 

 population to have been not much less than 140,000, as proved by 

 deduction from the parish registers, and the annual mortahty as one 

 in twenty. Fortunately for the health of the citizens, space is become 

 more valuable for warehouses than for human habitation; so that the 

 population of the city within the walls is diminished to 55,778, and 

 the rate of mortality to less than one in forty. 



The City of London without the walls has been acquired by succes- 

 sive royal grants of jurisdiction. The main part of it extends west- 

 ward to Temple Bar, constituting the best built part of the town in 

 the reigns of the Plantagenets. The population of this portion of the 

 metropolis was about 69,000 at the beginning of the last century, 

 but it now amounts only to 66,209. 



The Borough of Southwark has been repeatedly granted to the City 

 of London, of which it forms the Bridge-ward without; but the juris- 

 diction of the City has always been resisted in the Borough. Its 

 origin cannot but be ascribed to the ferry, which in Roman times 

 connected London with the military road to Dover. The Roman roads 

 were all measured from London Stonef, still extant in Cannon-street, 

 from whence the road passed immediately down to the Water Gate of 

 the city, the ferry crossing to the end of a causeway (now Bank-end^\ 



• At the moment we vrite this, we fear this v/ill not be strictly verified 

 with regard to the cholera; but its ravages are less virulent there than in 

 other parts. 



+ No defect in the metropolis is more inconvenient than the want of 

 such a stone, the various roads from London being now measured from ten 

 or eleven diffwent places, two, three, and even four miles distant from each 

 other. The catalogue is curious: Hyde Park Corner and Whitechapel 

 Church; the Surrey side of London Bridge and of Westminster Bridge; 

 Shorcditch Church, Tylnirn Turnpike; Holborn Bars (long since removed), 

 "the place where St. Giles's Pound formerly stood"; ''the place where 

 Hicks's Hall formerly stood;" the Standard in Cornhill (of which no other 

 tradition remains, its exact site being unknown); and the "Stones' End in 

 the Borough", which moves with the extension of the pavement. Thus 

 the actual distance of any place cannot be known without minute inquiry 

 and local knowledge of Lontlon. The easy remedy consists in adopting the 

 mileage of the Post Office, when it shall have been remeasurcd from the 

 new bite of that office, the frontage of which grand centre of comniunica- 

 tion could not be more appropriately adorned, than by an obelisk, which 

 would become a London Stone, in imitation of that which stood in the Forum 

 of ancient Rome. The vicinity of St. Paul's, the most conspicuous object 

 in Ijondon, recommends the new Post Office especially for this pur|)o>e; 

 and turnjjike road trustees would not refuse to accommodate to it their 

 milestones, under the direction of the road surveyor of the Post Office. 



