17G TIIR BRITISH ISLES. 



confusion ; but after awhile wc perceive that in this niovinj^ chaos there arc two 

 well-marked currents, fed by the numerous side-streets as by so many affluents, 

 and that these currents, though flowing in opposite directions, carefully avoid 

 each other. Beneath the crowd passing along on the tops of omnibuses and in 

 carriages there moves another crowd, which glides between the wheels, dives 

 beneath the horses' heads, and flows in contrary streams along the pathways. Now 

 and then may be heard the dull rumble which announces the arrival of a train ; 

 the railwa}^ station sends foi-th its crowd of passengers, and these are quickly lost 

 amongst the greater crowd pouring through the streets. London Bridge, the 

 principal means of communication between the City and Southwark, is daily 

 crossed by at least 300,000 persons, and from year to year the traffic which flows 

 across it increases in bulk.* Reconstructed in 1825, to accommodate the grow- 

 ing traffic, it has become necessary since to widen it once more, in order that it 

 may afl'ord a channel broad enough for the " river of men which flows across the 

 unconscious river beneath." f Standing upon this bridge and looking seawards, we 

 see both banks fringed with a forest of masts, the intervening space being hardly 

 wide enough for the manoeuvring vessels, carried along by the current or 

 struggling against the tide. Above bridge numerous sm ill steamers, crowded 

 from stem to stern with passengers, appear and disappear under the arches of a 

 railway bridge quivering almost incessantly beneath passing trains. These minia- 

 ture steamers, which stop every instant at some pier, and start as soon as they have 

 discharged or replenished their human cargoes, may be likened to moving quaj's 

 travelling from one end of the town to the other. 



The metropolitan "railways, carried along high viaducts above the houses or 

 running through tunnels and deep cuttings beneath them, are great passenger 

 high-roads, in no waj^ inferior to the streets of the City, and far more important 

 than the Thames. The number of passengers who arrive daily at the railway 

 stations of London cannot be less than a million. In the more frequented under- 

 ground stations, the din and rumble of carriages are incessant, and hardly has a 

 train departed before another makes its appearance. Between Brentford and 

 Greenwich, Sydenham and Highgate, there are no less than 150 stations, great 

 and small, and all the quarters of the town have been placed in communication 

 with each other and with the great trunk lines which connect London with the 

 provinces. All but the local traffic is carried on by steam. On the approaching 

 completion of the Inner Cin-le, it is proposed to attach the trains to cables set in 

 motion by stationary engines, and they will then roll along without intermission like 

 planets in their orbit. It is mainly owing to these facilities for rapid locomotion 

 that London has been able to spread itself over the surrounding country, much to 

 the advantage of public health. If the aid of steam had not been invoked, 

 London, like Paris and most other continental towns, Avould have been compelled 

 to grow in height by placing story upon stor\'. Nevertheless, even London can 

 show a few of those huge edifices in which thousands of human beings live, floor 



* In 1875 London Bridge was crossed daily by 20,000 vehicles, and by 170,000 persons on foot, 

 t Charles Dickens. 



