Holloway drives one of the handsomest carriages you shall meet in the Strand. Sawyer and Strange, who the other day were respectable young men unknown to fame, paid the Crystal Palace Company upwards of £12,000, as per contract, for the liberty to supply refreshments for a few months. In the city there, at this time, may be seen the proprietor of a dining-room, who drives a handsome mail-phaeton and pair daily to town in the morning to do business, and back at night. Thackeray has a tale of a gentleman who married a young lady, drove his cab, and lived altogether in great style. The gentleman was very silent as to his occupation; he would not even communicate the secret to his wife. All that she knew was what was patent to all his neighbours—that he went in his Brougham in the morning, and returned at night. Even the mother-in-law, prying as she was, was unable to solve the mystery. At length, one day the unfortunate wife, going with her dear mamma into the city, in the person of a street sweeper clothed in rags, and covered with dirt, she recognised her lord and master, who decamped and was never heard of more. The story is comic, but not improbable, for London is so full of wealth, you have only to take your place, and it seems as if some of the golden shower must fall into your mouth. Mr. Thwaites, when examined before the Parliamentary Committee on the Embankment of the Thames, said, “The metropolis contributes very largely to the taxation of the country. The value of the property assessed under Schedule A, is £22,385,350, whilst the sum for the rest of the kingdom is £127,994,288; under Schedule D the metropolis shows £37,871,644, against £86,077,676. The gross estimated rental of the property of the metropolis assessed to the poor rates is £16,157,320, against £86,077,676 from the rest of the kingdom.” The speculations on the Stock Exchange embrace a national debt of 800 millions, railway shares to the extent of 300 millions, besides foreign stock, foreign railway shares, and miscellaneous investments of all kinds. Land has been sold in the neighbourhood of the Exchange and the Bank at the rate of a million pounds an acre. The rateable value of the property assessed to the poor rates in the districts of the metropolis in 1857 amounted to £11,167,678. A Parliamentary Return shows that the total ordinary receipts of the Corporation of the city for the year 1857 amounted to £905,298, the largest item being the coal duty, £64,238. The London omnibuses pay government a duty of no less than £70,200 a year. The Thames even, dirty and stinking as it is, is full of gold. One fact will place its commercial value in the clearest light. In 1856 the Customs’ duties entered as collected from all parts of the United Kingdom were £19,813,622, and of this large sum considerably more than half was collected in the port of London,—the Customs’ duties paid in the port of