Of Surrey's population, over two millions, the greater part is concentrated on some fifty of the 755 square miles that make its measurement. In this county lie half a dozen of the metropolitan boroughs, to which may be tacked on Croydon, Richmond, and Kingston, and many a village promoted to be a "choice residential suburb." The last census notes a slight decrease in what it terms the outer belt of suburbs; but that seems to mean only a shifting farther into the country, as trains and trams bring a wider circle within the area where the builder can claim fresh nooks as "ripe for development." The once rustic "box" of the early Victorian citizen is apt to have come down in the world. Perhaps nine-tenths of my readers may look blank when reminded how Mr. Quirk's "Alibi House" was at Camberwell, and Mr. Tagrag's "Satin Lodge" at Clapham; yet surely they are aware of the miniature Walworth Castle, in which Mr. Wemmick kept an aged parent. "Lovell the Widower's" home at Putney, and the palatial Roehampton villas of Thackeray's city magnates may still stand high in house agents' books. But in ex-suburbs, as a rule, such pleasure-houses of a former generation are in no demand now, their sites often covered by shabby streets, shops, or blocks of flats; while leagues farther out, at Purley, Tadworth, or Claygate, spring up a fresh crop of smartly painted villas, in lines or knots, with white walls, red roofs, green water-butts and "modern conveniences," to tempt Londoners who can afford fresh air for living in. Every year some new village or hamlet is strangled in the arms of the monster that has yearly been adding a score of miles to its myriad streets, and taking in new inhabitants enough to people a town. Yet Surrey has the surprising feature of a deserted village, and that on the very edge of the county of London. Fitly named Lonesome, it stands close to Streatham, a few minutes' walk from more than one railway station. The builder is so busy hereabouts, that for all I know it may have been broken up before this page gets into print; but for a generation it has stood uninhabited, with cracked walls and smashed windows, an unlovely ruin, making a monument of some story in which an obstinate landlord, a disagreeable industry, or a disastrous enterprise are vaguely mixed up in my memory.