LONDON 



3492 



LONDON COMPANY 



overseas trade of London consists of imports; 

 more than one-third of the imports of Great 

 Britain come in through London. Besides its 

 overseas trade the coastwise shipping of Lon- 

 don is greater than that of all the other Eng- 

 lish ports combined. London is also the center 

 from which radiate all the great railroad lines 

 of the United Kingdom. 



Industry. London is the largest manufactur- 

 ing center in the United Kingdom and one of 

 the most important in the world, although this 

 fact escapes notice in the vastness of this city. 

 Among the thousands of establishments, each 

 of which employs hundreds of people, are brew- 

 eries, distilleries, sugar refineries, tanneries, 

 shipyards, publishing and printing houses, and 

 factories, producing practically all commodities 

 in common use. 



History. London was a good-sized trading 

 place as early as the first invasion of the Ro- 

 mans, in 55 B. c. It became the capital of the 

 kingdom of Alfred the Great in the ninth cen- 

 tury, and in 1066 received from William the 



LONDON 

 At the time of Shakespeare's death. 



Conqueror a charter which has never been de- 

 stroyed. With the settlement of the Normans 

 there began the erection of larger and more 

 imposing churches, monasteries and public 

 buildings. Wars, epidemics, famines and fires 

 hindered the city's growth throughout the Mid- 

 dle Ages and well into the modern period; late 

 in 1664 a great plague broke out that carried 

 off over 100,000 people in >six months, and in 

 1666 a fire swept away the greater part of the 

 city. As in many other cases, however, a new 

 and better city rose from the ruins. Streets 

 were made wider, and more substantial build- 

 ings were erected. Since the beginning of the 

 nineteenth century London's growth in popula- 

 tion and wealth has continued with little in- 

 terruption. 



The reader will find many intimate and fas- 

 cinating descriptions of various parts of London 

 and its outlying towns in the novels of Dickens. 

 A recent book of great interest is Edward V. 

 Lucas' A Wanderer in London. O.B. 



JACK LONDON 



Consult Mitton's Children's Book of London; 

 Douglas-Irwin's History of London; Hare's 

 Walks in London. 



LONDON, JACK (1876-1916), a writer of nov- 

 els and short stories, who probably put into 

 his books more of his own life than did any 

 other American author. The God of His Fath- 

 ers, A Daughter of the Snows, The Children 

 oj the Frost, The 

 People oj the 

 Abyss, all grew 

 out of his own 

 experiences. 

 In The Son of 

 the Wolf and The 

 Call of the Wild, 

 Alaskan stories, 

 the author gave 

 his own actual ex- 

 perience in the 

 country which he 

 described. The 

 C ruis e of the 

 Dazzler, a boy's 

 story, is the account of his own adventures as 

 a boy on San Francisco Bay. 



London was a native son of California, born 

 in San Francisco, January 12, 1876. He attended 

 college one year, but being of a roving disposi- 

 tion left school and became successively long- 

 shoreman, sailor, gold hunter in the Klondike, 

 and wanderer. The Call of the Wild, an ani- 

 mal story depicting reversion to type, in which 

 an intelligent, domesticated dog degenerated 

 into a wolf, is a good example of the author's 

 art in picturing the ghastly somberness of th< 

 frozen North. The Valley of the Moon chroni- 

 cles the hardships of a young pugilist in th( 

 city and his ultimate success as a truck gar- 

 dener in California; The Game is also a stor 

 of a pugilist. His books all show his hatred of 

 sham and pretense and his deep sympathy witl 

 humanity. 



LONDON COMPANY. In 1606 there wi 

 founded in London a corporation which had 

 its purpose the establishing of colonies in Noi 

 America. This was shortly afterward divk 

 into two branches, the Plymouth, or Noi 

 Virginia Company, and the London, or Vir- 

 ginia, Company. The former was to plant 

 colony between 41 and 45 north latitude, 

 latter between 34 and 38 north latitude, while 

 the branch which first carried out its purp( 

 was to have added to its territory all the It 

 between 38 and 41. The London Company 

 was the first to act, sending out a party 



