19A THE BRITISH ISLES. 



fire-arms, mucbinory of every description, watches, jewellery, and furniture. It 

 builds and fits out vessels, though on a much-reduced scale since the introduction 

 of iron steamers, which can be more economically produced in the northern ports. 

 The silk industry, first introduced by French Huguenots towards the close of the 

 seventeenth century, still keeps its ground. Tan-yards, sugar refineries, and dis- 

 tilleries are of great importance. The breweries are vast establishments, and the 

 excise dues exacted from them considerably swell the receipts of the treasury. 

 Nearly all of them have secured a supply of pure Avater by boring artesian wells, 

 one of which descends a depth of 1,020 feet, to the beds of the lower greensand. 

 A large proportion of the market gardens of all England lie in the vicinity of 

 London, but they cannot compare with those to be seen around Paris. 



As a money market London is without a rival in the world. Even France can- 

 not dispose of savings equal to those which annually accumulate in England, which 

 latter enjoys, in addition, the advantages accruing from the universal practice of 

 banking. The City of London probably has at its immediate command a capital 

 equal in amount to what could be furnished jointly by all the other money markets 

 of the world, and this circumstance enables her, to the detriment of other countries, 

 to take advantage of every opportunity for realising a profit that may present itself 

 in any quarter of the globe* The great bankers in Lombard Street, the worthy 

 successors of those Lombards and Florentines who first initiated Englishmen into 

 the mysteries of banking, are applied to by every Government in distress, by raining 

 and railway companies, by inventors desirous of converting their ideas into ringing 

 coin, by speculators of every description. There are but few Governments which, 

 in addition to an official envoy accredited to the court of St. James, do not maintain 

 a rejjresentative attached to the money-lenders in Lombard Street. Thanks to 

 the information which flows into London as the centre of the world, the City 

 capitalists are the first to learn where judicious investments can be made. Nearly 

 every colonial enterprise is " financed " by London ; the mines of South America 

 are being worked indirectly on behalf of the bankers of the City, who have also 

 constructed the railways and harbours of Brazil, the Argentine Confederation, and 

 Chili ; and it is the city which nearly all the submarine telegraph companies of the 

 world have chosen as their head-quarters. 



The first town of the world as a money market, London ranks foremost, too, as 

 a place of commerce and a shipping port. It is the greatest mart in the universe for 

 tea, cofi'ee, and most kinds of colonial produce. The wool of Australia and Africa 

 finds its way into its warehouses, and foreign purchasers are compelled to replenish 

 their supplies there. A large quantity of merchandise only reaches continental 

 Europe through the port of the Thames as an intermediary. t 



♦ "\V. Eagehot, " Lombard Street." 



t ForeigQ trade of London (Exports and Imports) : — 



1^3.5 . . . £333,160 1873 . . . £184,7.59,000 



1"00 . . . £10,000,000 1876 . . . £186,700,000 



1"91 • • . £31,000,000 1879 . . . £146,741,000 



1825 . . . £42,803,145 



For further details on the Tiade and Shipping of London we refer the reader to the Appendix. 



