Passing from this entrance into the grand central market, you find yourself in a circular area boarded with oak planks of a light and dark hue, arranged in a kind of mosaic of long angles, which converge to a centre piece, wherein a great anchor is inlaid. Beside this, there is a wooden dagger, to the blade of which a legend of no interest is attached. Three ranges of cast-iron galleries rise all round, terminating above in a large glass dome, with an orange-coloured centre of stained glass. Around the floor of the area, at due intervals, long desks of new polished oak, with inkstands let into the wood, stand invitingly ready for the transaction of business. The City Arms, on a series of small shields, is the simple adornment of the outer balustrade-work of the three galleries,—except, also, that these galleries often have many lady-visitors who lean over and contemplate the ‘dark doings’ of the busy black-diamond merchants who congregate below. But let it not be supposed that the ornaments of the Coal Exchange of London are confined to the City Arms, or even the beauty of the lady-visitors. Private offices, and recesses for business, having the most neat, orderly appearance, even to a primness and propriety worthy of the Society of Friends, are observable round the area, beneath the galleries; but the panels of the woodwork that separate these offices, rejoice in the most lively adornments, _à la Jullien_. They are covered with emblematic, fanciful, and not very characteristic pictures and designs, all in the brightest hues; and, being painted on a light ground, they have a look of gaiety and airiness quite of a continental character. The weight and gravity of the City has, for once—and by way of smiling antagonism to what every one would expect of a coal-market—determined to emulate the gayest places of public amusement in France or Germany. Restaurants, cafés, dancing-rooms—and oh!—shall we say it—a touch of Cremorne! In one panel you see a figure of _Watchfulness_, typified by a robed lady, with a wise-faced owl at her side. The river Severn is typified by Naïads and a dolphin—by a little poetic licence. In another panel we have _Charity_, bearing a couple of children, with a figure of old Father Thames sitting among rushes below. Then, we have _Perseverance_ for the Avon, emblemed by a snail at the foot of a brunette lady with black eyes,—the favourite style of beauty of the artist, Mr. Sang. The Trent and the Tyne are similarly illustrated, and all in the brightest colours, on a light ground.