A few years ago there was a cluster of mean and squalid streets on the ground where the Aquarium stands--with others of the Seven Dials pattern leading to it. These have been cleared away with extraordinary rapidity, and quite a new quarter has been formed, of which the Town Hall is the centre. Not unpleasing, and effective also, is the large group of buildings in irregular broken order that gather round it. There is Christ Church and churchyard, across which a path has been made from Victoria Street, and which is flanked by the new and grand “Iddesleigh Mansions,” with its stained glass and outside galleries. Then on the other side rise the enormous “St. Ermine’s Mansions,” rival to the “Queen Anne’s.” The visitor should note the extraordinary decorations over the doorways--two boys seated in a _dégagé_ attitude, their legs projecting airily, projections not likely to remain long _in situ_. We should note, however, the pleasing Vicarage just erected in the churchyard, a compact and snug and picturesque little edifice. The church is rude and bald enough, but a project is on foot for completing the steeple. Then the place will be complete. Yet, strange to say, fringing these pretentious edifices, meant for the opulent, are the most squalid dens and alleys filled with cellars and “shanties,” with such significant names as King’s Head Court, Smith’s Rents, Horse Shoe Alley, and the like, where poverty reeks and flourishes well, as it might be said, and where from half a crown to four shillings is paid weekly for some crazy dilapidated chamber. The performance of the Westminster Play, which takes place about a week before Christmas, furnishes the Londoner with an opportunity for dreaming himself away into old University or Cathedral life. Once within Dean’s Yard a very pleasing delusion steals over him; and so appropriate are the calm associations of the place that he will fancy himself hundreds of miles away in some scholastic retirement, instead of being close to the rattle of streets, of passing omnibuses and cabs and the busy hurly-burly of Westminster. The pleasant old custom of the Westminster Play still flourishes in all its vitality, and should be cherished as one of those survivals which usefully keep green the few romantic associations that are known to the capital.