Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 55732-h.htm or 55732-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/55732/55732-h/55732-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/55732/55732-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/palacehovel00kirw [Illustration: ONE MORE UNFORTUNATE. (Page 459.)] [Illustration: GRAND STAIRCASE, BUCKINGHAM PALACE.] PALACE AND HOVEL: Or, Phases of London Life. Being Personal Observations of an American in London, by Day and Night; with Graphic Descriptions of Royal and Noble Personages, Their Residences and Relaxations; Together with Vivid Illustrations of the Manners, Social Customs, and Modes of Living of the Rich and the Reckless, the Destitute and the Depraved, in the Metropolis of Great Britain. With Valuable Statistical Information, Collected from the Most Reliable Sources. by DANIEL JOSEPH KIRWAN. Beautifully Illustrated with Two Hundred Engravings, and a finely executed Map of London. Published by Subscription Only. Hartford, Conn.: Belknap & Bliss. W. E. Bliss, Toledo, Ohio.--Nettleton & Co., Cincinnati, Ohio.--Duffield Ashmead, Philadelphia, Pa. Union Publishing Co., Chicago, Ill. A. L. Bancroft & Co., San Francisco, Cal. 1870 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by Belknap & Bliss, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Connecticut. William H. Lockwood, Electrotyper, Hartford, Conn. TO Samuel L.M. Barlow, Esq., OF NEW YORK CITY, A True Gentleman in Every Quality and Duty of Life, THESE PAGES ARE DEDICATED, AS A SLIGHT TESTIMONY TO THE Unvarying Friendship borne by him for the author PREFACE. In offering this volume to the Public, the result of a year's experience and labor, I must indeed feel gratified, and more than rewarded, if any of those who may peruse its pages shall find in them a tithe of the pleasure which I enjoyed in journeying in and about the nooks, crannies, and curious places, of what may be justly called the greatest and most populous City of the Modern World. Believing that a Metropolis of Three and a Half Millions of people should be observed and described, if observed and described at all, in a large and comprehensive sense, in order that a thorough knowledge of it may be obtained by those who will do me the honor of turning the leaves of this book, I have not hesitated to take my readers into places which they might shrink from visiting alone, and which are rarely or ever seen by the stranger, in London. Therefore have I sketched its Haunts of Vice, Misery, and Crime, as well as its fairer and brighter aspects, with no faltering in my purpose, so that the American people might see London as I saw it, and as it exists To-Day.