PEE -RAILWAY LIFE IN 

 LONDON. 



How shall I begin to describe " Life in London" at a period 

 between the early days of her present Majesty and the 

 railway mania ? After the model of Tom and Jerry, or of 

 Sir Mulberry Hawk, and Lord Yerisopht, those four dreary 

 snobs who never could have lived, or if they ever did, never 

 could have been in the society of any English gentlemen ? 

 Heaven forbid. Let me imagine myself standing, as I 

 often stand, in Westminster Abbey with reverent awe before 

 the statue of Joseph Addison, the busts of Macaulay and 

 Thackeray, my three favourite authors : and let me invoke 

 the shade of the second named to lend me a little of the fire 

 w^hich inspired him when he wrote the wonderful chapter 

 on the state of England in 1685. So here goes for the 

 Macaulayan veiu. 



I purpose to write the history of London life from the 

 year 184:0 down to the year 1846 or thereabouts, a period 

 within the memory of all middle-aged men now living. 



London of that period consisted of a large city sur- 

 rounded by numerous outlying villages and districts, and 

 not wholly shut in by houses as now. From Primrose Hill 

 to Highgate, Hampstead, or Hornsey, lay open tracts of 

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