Few have any conception of the extent or nature of Italian immigration. Signor Righetti, the Secretary of the Italian Benevolent Society, estimates the number of Italians in London alone at upwards of 9000. In this estimate his opinion is corroborated by Signor Roncoroni, Secretary of the _Societá dei Cuochi e Camerieri_, who states that out of this 9000, 2000 are employed as Italian cooks and waiters in London. These of course can in no sense be objected to, because they are skilled labourers. Of the remaining 7000, the vast majority are either organ-grinders or ice-cream vendors. The head-quarters of the organ-grinders is--or was--at Eyre Street Hill, a steep and narrow thoroughfare forming a connecting link between Leather Lane and Coppice Row in Clerkenwell. There are a few minor settlements in Kensington, another in Notting Hill, a third in Somers Town; but the principal foreign colony is situated at Eyre Street Hill. Eyre Street Hill has tortuous ins and outs, and numerous blind alleys, in each and all of which Italians swarm. The Italian ice-cream barrow has become as familiar a picture in London street-trading as the apple-stall, baked chestnuts, or baked potato stove. The profits derived from the sale of this unwholesome compound are said to be very satisfactory; and certainly the quantity manufactured must be enormous. There is a depôt for ice on Eyre Street Hill. All day long, during the summer months, may be seen there waggon-loads of ice-cubes, which are afterwards broken up for the purpose required. Also the vendor of lemons does a brisk business in the same locality, and likewise the milkman--or rather, I should say, the man who sells what passes for milk. The ingredients of the ice-cream may possibly be found harmless enough; but the way in which the compound is prepared is in the last degree objectionable. The manufacture is often carried on in the living-room of the family, the condition of which is filthy and disgusting in the extreme. Near Leather Lane there is one short street of high black houses, the windows of which are patched and plugged with paper and rags. The passages and stairs are dilapidated and filthy, and the sanitary conditions simply abominable. In almost every room of each of these houses, resides at least one ice-cream maker, and vendor. Such a room will serve as a living and sleeping room for a whole family--the man, his wife, and a numerous progeny.