The disappearance of these open spaces, and the erection of enormously high buildings on every available spot, is, I believe, a great evil, not only from the picturesque, but from the sanitary point of view. Writers on sanitary subjects are agreed that, of dangers to health, overcrowding is one of the greatest, and that, other things being equal, the death-rate regularly increases in proportion to the density of the population. Dr. G. V. Poore[109] has recently pointed out that every new set of offices adds its quota to the sewage in the river; while ‘the absence of green plants entails a great loss of nascent oxygen or ozone which gives to air its peculiar quality of freshness.’ In his opinion, it is hardly conceivable that a high level of health can be maintained in a spot where vegetable life languishes, animal and vegetable life being complementary to each other. Some will no doubt console themselves with the notion that, the City being now to a great extent merely a place of business, those who spend the day there (considerably more than a million, according to the last calculation) can throw off the ill effects while they are away. To this I reply that, if one includes the outlying parts, many thousands still make it their home, and that, in any case, to spend a quarter of one’s existence under most unhealthy conditions must tend to cause illness and to shorten life. In these times of popular government, the great City Guilds are more or less on their probation. If I am right, the Drapers’ Company, whatever the temptation may have been, committed a fatal mistake when they covered their garden with huge blocks of offices, a mistake which can never be atoned for by any amount of charitable donation. Their example has been quickly followed, and soon, I fear, hardly one breathing-space will remain in the City except the ground about St. Paul’s and the Tower, and here and there a bit of a disused graveyard hemmed in by lofty offices and warehouses. [Illustration] [Illustration] INDEX. Adam and Eve, Newgate Street, sign, 121 Addle Street; derivation of name, 47 Aggas’s, Ralph, map, 139 Aldermanbury, sign in, 94 Alleyne, Sir Thomas, Lord Mayor, 209 Altitude, highest in City, 7 Ancaster, Duke of, 153 Anchor, signs, 106 Angel Alley, 221 Angel, Islington, 180, 182 Ape, carving of, 46 Aquarium Tavern, 166 Artillery Street, Bishopsgate Without, 167 Ashburnham, Lord, 35 Ashby-Sterry, J., 158 Ashwell’s Place, site of, 179 Austin Friars, 220 house in, 220 Axe and Bottle Yard, 136 Bacon, Francis, 134 Bagnigge House, 192, 195, 196 Bagnigge Wells, 191-196 Bagnio Court, 20 Baker and Basket, sign, 6 Baltassar, one of the Three Kings, 32 Barrington, Hon. D., on arms of Inner Temple, 132 Bartholomew Close, 137 Basing House, 202 Bath Street, 20 Battle Bridge, 198