Nothing can be more instructive and entertaining than to turn back in 1884 to facts, figures, calculations, estimates, and inferences which fitted the London of 1854. Instead of two millions and a half, the population resident at this moment within the metropolitan and city police districts amounts at least to four millions and three-quarters. The area already covered by the mighty town, which adds another big town to its entirety each successive year, is about four hundred and fifty thousand square acres, and there are more than seven hundred thousand houses to be provided for, of which it may be presumed that few can do without at least a pint of milk per diem. Assuming, however, that each member of this enormous population consumed no more than a quarter of a pint of milk--that is to say, a small tumblerful--per diem, we come to the astounding conclusion that nearly six hundred thousand quarts are wanted every day, nearly four million two hundred thousand quarts every week, and nearly two hundred and seventeen million quarts every year, to meet the demands of London. Few of us are able to fathom the meaning of two hundred million quarts of liquid until we are told what an immense reservoir, ten feet deep, it would take to hold such an amount. More intelligible are the calculations which tell us that, assuming a cow to yield ten--not twelve--quarts of milk daily, it would require nearly sixty thousand milch cows to maintain this supply from year's end to year's end. If these patient and valuable milkers are estimated as being worth no more than twenty-pounds apiece, they would represent in their aggregate a capital of little less than one million four hundred thousand pounds. Pure milk of a reliable character, costs five-pence per quart, and therefore, on the above basis, there is spent on milk, in the metropolis and its circumjacent districts, twelve thousand four hundred pounds per day, nearly eighty-seven thousand pounds per week, and considerably more than four and a half million pounds per annum. There are States which have made a considerable noise in the world, whose total revenue does not reach what London spends annually in milk alone. As for the distribution of this inconceivable amount of liquid, which is delivered every morning and afternoon in small quantities all over the enormous area of bricks-and-mortar to which we have referred, it would utterly baffle the most marvellous organiser and administrator that ever existed upon earth, to extemporise human machinery for carrying on so minute and yet so gigantic a trade. Nevertheless, how smoothly and imperceptibly, not only in this one small detail, but throughout the whole of its vast and endless complications and ramifications, does the commissariat of London work! We are told, for instance, that to distribute every sixteen gallons of milk one person is necessary, and that, without counting managers, clerks,