One wonders, looking along the interminable extent of mean streets, to see the endless shops. It looks as if everybody had something to sell; and where the buyers can be who knows? You may watch some of these places for hours, and you will not see a soul enter or depart. Look in, and very likely some old man or woman is drowsing away, if in summer time, behind a paltry litter of old stuffs, the whole not worth a year's living; or, if in winter, half-perishing with cold, waiting for customers who never come. And these waifs [dri-tze] of a forgotten trade linger on, in old age, eating hungrily the husks of former traffic, which new ways have destroyed. London is an enormous shop with a West End of dwellings; these, however, not by any means shopless. It is a marvel. Thousands and thousands of mean shops, yet supporting the tens of thousands which live by them. One asks how any fair profit can do this. You will see a display of rusty goods, of tawdry ornaments, of dirty books, of mere rubbish; and if you venture inside you will hurry out again. The creatures inside are as unattractive as the wares. Do you believe these are places of honest dealing? But in what are called respectable tradesmen's houses, profits must be little short of plunder--the business is so small. Yet the English Barbarians, of certain classes, seem to take to this mode of living upon the community with a hawk-like keenness. The difference between the price of an article of food, whether bought first hands, or after it has passed through these intermediaries, is a difference as of one-half to the whole--that is, the price is doubled! These petty tradesmen glean their livings from the poor, who cannot help themselves; but, in truth, the common feeling is on all hands, "Let us plunder, and be plundered." It is merely a question of securing a good share. London, therefore, not wanting in a certain air of greatness in some parts, really expresses very clearly the traits of the English Barbarians. It is gloomy, morose, huckstering, repulsive. Huge it is, like the English barbaric power; but incoherent, uninformed, unlovely, without the beauty of refinement. Still, in the purpose of the Sovereign Lord, one may guess the use of this great centre of barbaric influence--it is to beat down the distant and worse tribes beyond the great seas. As one sort of predatory creature devours another, so these Barbarians destroy worse types of men than themselves, and prepare the way for human advancement. Whether, however, they shall themselves ever emerge into a noble life, is a curious inquiry.