REATER LONDON!" What a vague and ill-defined term! We all know London proper, comprising the City and Westminster, and making up one metropolis. But "Greater London !" What can the words mean? What and where are its limits? and how far afield will it carry us? Do you mean the area ruled over by the Metropolitan Board of Works, or by the authorities of the Census Department, or by the Metropolitan Police, or that which the Postmaster-General takes as the limits of his suburban deliveries of letters?

The question is not very easily answered offhand, for we are free to own that there are several "Greater Londons," and that these are far from being coincident. The district ruled over by our Board of Works, though large, covers very little ground that has not been already travelled by us in "Old and New London," except in a single direction-that of the estuary of the Thames, the

very district in which we have stopped the shortest. Again, the postal suburban limits are subject to frequent changes; and the Census authorities have fixed on somewhat ill-defined and arbitrary bounds, as to which it is impossible to say on what principle they have been settled. It remains, therefore, that we select, as open to the fewest objections, the circle of the Metropolitan Police jurisdiction, which extends, in every direction, about fifteen miles on an average from the centre of modern London, namely, Charing Cross. This embraces the whole of Middlesex and a part of Surrey, together with most of the suburban districts of Essex and Kent, reaching from Dagenham in the east to Uxbridge in the west, and from Colney and Cheshunt in the north to Epsom and Warlingham in the south-an almost perfect circle, some twenty-eight miles in diameter.

have been swept away from the heart of London, upon the site of which now stand tall piles of warehouses and offices."

But in truth, when we speak of "London," we do not mean so much a city as a collection or gathering together of cities. Not only is our metropolis many-handed, like Briareus, and manyheaded, like Cerberus: it is manifold. It is no longer singular, but plural; it consists no longer of one city, but of many. It has engulfed gradually many cities, towns, villages, and separate jurisdictions. Its present surface, as already intimated, includes large portions of four commonwealths, or kingdoms, those of the Middle Saxons, of the East Saxons, of the "South Rie" (Surrey) folk, and of the men of Kent. Taken in its widest acceptation, as above shown, London—or rather, the district which is under the rule of the Metropolitan Police-now embraces, not only the entire cities of London and Westminster, but the entire county of Middlesex, all the boroughs of Southwark and Greenwich, the towns of Woolwich and Wandsworth, the watering-places of Hampstead, Highgate, Islington, Acton, and Kilburn, the fishing-town of Barking, the once secluded and ancient villages of Hanwell, Cheshunt, Harrow, Croydon, Finchley, Twickenham, Teddington, Chigwell, Sutton, Addington, and many others. It will be seen, therefore, that there is some truth in the witty definition which has been given of London, namely "That world of stucco which is bounded by Barnet on the north and Croydon on the south; which touches Woolwich in the far east, and Richmond and Twickenham in the far west."

Greater London ! "The spread of material London," it has been observed-"the London of bricks and mortar and stucco-is becoming a gigantic-one might almost say an appalling-factor in our national existence. Every day it becomes more difficult to say where the limits of the capital have been reached, and at what point the cockney may fairly be said to begin his long-sought 'day in the country.' Every week new building speculations absorb the green fields and hedgerows, and the quiet little village station becomes a suburban junction. To introduce some guiding principle into this labyrinth, Sir Brydges Henniker, our Registrar-General, has, in his returns, divided London into two portions-an inner and an outer zone. The inner zone comprises the fixed and permanent city, spreading in a continuous mass from Hampstead on the north to Norwood on the south, and from Bromley on the east to Hammersmith on the west. This area comprises, in round figures, about 78,000 acres, and, with the exception of parks and open spaces which have been saved by Parliament from the ruthless grasp of the builder, is already fully utilised for building purposes. It must not be forgotten that whilst there has been very considerable growth in districts within the central area, but approaching the outer zone, a process has been constantly at work in all the most central parts of London tending to drive further outwards the resident Of late years, the removal of dwellings in "Lonpopulation. We may instance the construction of don proper" for commercial purposes, and the the new terminus of the Great Eastern Railway in consequent erection of others in the suburbs and Liverpool Street, and the lines of railway converg-outlying villages, has been rapid in the extreme. ing at that point; the construction of new thorough- Streets, terraces, and villas, of all shapes and sizes, fares by the various public bodies, all of which are springing up in all directions, and quite alterhave passed through densely-populated districts; ing the hitherto rural aspect of the spots encroached and the vast number of dwelling-houses which upon. That this growth of London has not been

"The growth of a great city," observes John Timbs, "must be an interesting study to a larger number of persons than we may at first imagine; its claims upon their attention are world-wide when that city is London. It may seem like national partiality when we speak thus; but it is only philosophic reasoning when we remember that no city of equal size and importance exists in the world, or ever did exist. Babylon 'the Great' was not so large, and imperial Rome was smaller in its palmiest days; even when mistress of the world it by no means rivalled modern London."