The Victorian era will be known to posterity as “the golden period of English history.” Victoria has been a mother to her children and a benefactor to her people. She has developed her country, advanced the arts and sciences, and founded hospitals and asylums. May the good Queen live long to rule righteously, to glorify motherhood, and adorn her palace with Christian virtues. And may the angel of peace long guard her realms! [Illustration: NELSON’S MONUMENT.] CHAPTER XI SIGHTS OF LONDON. Traveling in London—London a Studio—The Hum of Folly and the Sleep of Traffic—Five Million Heads in Nightcaps—Too Many People Together—Survival of the Fittest—Place and Pride—Poverty and Penury—Beneficence in London—East End—Assembly Hall—A Converted Brewer—His Great Work—Meeting an Old Schoolmate. THE man who comes to London and is driven around in a hansom, or a carriage, as most tourists are, and sees only the museums and art galleries, the botanical and zoological gardens, the monuments and statues, the costly cathedrals and splendid temples, the lordly mansions and the superb palaces, of the city, leaves with a false, imperfect, distorted, and one-sided idea of the place. I would advise no man to come here, and leave, without visiting Westminister Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, without going to St. Paul’s Cathedral, to the Tower, and a dozen other places of general interest, “where travelers do most congregate.” These things one should see, as a matter of course, but other things should not be left unseen. I love to study architecture, art and literature; I love to study poetry and science; but, above all, I love to study _man_. Some years ago, I saw a gentleman in Queen’s College, Toronto, Canada, who received a good salary from the government to study cat-fish. Men spend many years and much money in studying birds. And is not one fish sold for a penny, and two sparrows for a farthing? Man is of more value than many fishes and sparrows. Then, why not study man? Nor is it enough to study men individually; but we must study them collectively as well. And, for this collective study of mankind, there is no better place to be found anywhere beneath the shining stars than the city of London. As I sit alone in my room to-night, my conscience hurting me for disobeying the counsels of a devoted mother in keeping this late hour, and look down upon the “life circulation” of the city, I realize that it is true sublimity to dwell here. “I am listening to the stifled hum of midnight, when traffic has lain down to rest. I hear the chariot wheels of vanity rolling here and there, bearing her on to distant streets, to halls roofed in, and lighted to the true pitch for folly. Vice and misery are roaming, prowling, mourning in the streets, like night-birds turned loose in the forest.