There is everything here, and plenty of it. As Malaprop Jenkins wrote to her "O Molly Jones," "All the towns that ever I beheld in my born days are no more than Welsh barrows and crumlecks to this wonderful sitty! Even Bath itself is but a fillitch; in the naam of God, one would think there's no end of the streets, but the Land's End. Then there's such a power of people going hurry-scurry! Such a racket of coxes! Such a noise and halibaloo! So many strange sites to be seen! O gracious! I have seen the Park, and the Paleass of St. Gimeses, and the Queen's magisterial pursing, and the sweet young princes and the hillyfents, and pybald ass, and all the rest of the Royal Family." In two minutes from Piccadilly Circus I can be at will in France, in Germany, in Italy, or in Jerusalem. Even at the loneliest hour of the night I can have company to walk with; for in Bond Street I meet Colonel Newcome's stately figure, in Pall Mall I encounter Peregrine Pickle's new chariot and horses, by the Thames I find the skulking figures of Quilp and Rogue Riderhood, in Southwark I am with Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller, in Eastcheap with immortal Jack Falstaff, sententious Nym, blustering Pistol, and glow-nosed Bardolph. With such companions at my side, I float on London's human tide; An atom on its billows thrown, But lonely never, nor alone. In a hundred yards I may jostle an Archbishop of the Established Church, a Prostitute, a Poet, a victorious General, the Hero of the last football match, a Millionaire, a "wanted" Murderer, a bevy of famous Actresses, a Socialist Refugee from Spain or Italy, a tattooed South Sea Islander, a loose-breeched Man-o'-War's man from Japan, Armenians, Cretans, Greeks, Jews, Turks, and Clarionettes from Pudsey. The mere picturesque externals suffice to entrance me; but the spell grips like a vice when I look closer and discriminate between the types. Such a commodity of warm slaves has civilisation gathered here! Such a fascinating rabble of addle-pated toadies, muddy-souled bullies of the bagnio, trade-fallen prize-fighters, aristocratic and other drabs, card and billiard sharpers, discarded unjust serving-men, revolted tapsters, touting tipsters, police-court habitués, cut-purses, area sneaks, and general slum-scum; pimpled bookmakers, millionaire sweaters and their dissipated sons; jerry-builders, members of Parliament, phosy-jaw and lead poisoners; African diamond smugglers, peers on the make, long-nosed company promoters, and old clo' men; Stock Exchange tricksters, fraudulent patriotic contractors, earthworms and graspers; fog-brained and parchment-hearted crawlers, pigeons, rooks, hawks, vultures, and carrion crows; the cankers of a base city and a sordid age; the flunkeys, pimps, and panders of society; the pride and chivalry of Piccadilly; the carrion, maggots, and reptiles of an empire upon whose infamies the sun never wholly succeeds in hiding its blushing countenance.