I HAVE already referred, in Chapter I., to the different areas occupied by the City of London at different periods. But the City, as we know it now, averages, roughly speaking, a mile and a half from east to west and three-quarters of a mile from north to south. It includes a considerable space outside the old wall, and the boundary line is very irregular, except on the southern side, where is the “silent highway.” It is governed by the Corporation, and its ancient wards are represented by Aldermen, while the Lord Mayor commences his year of office by a public procession through the streets on November 9th, supported by his dignified companions, the Sheriffs. The City of London is the Office of the World. Its highways represent untold wealth, and its byways reek with poverty and dirt; it contains the most bustling thoroughfares and the most retired corners; it is full of business and affairs up to date, and yet teeming with antiquarian interest, and relics of ancient history. As on one side of a busy road we have Cannon Street Station and on the other side the venerable “London Stone,” so the City churches, with their old-world churchyards, are wedged in between huge modern warehouses, offices, and public buildings; “churchyards sometimes so entirely detached from churches, always so pressed upon by houses; so small, so rank, so silent, so forgotten—except for the few people who ever look down into them from their smoky windows. As I stand peeping in through the iron gates and rails I can peel the rusty metal off, like bark from an old tree. The illegible tombstones are all lopsided, the grave-mounds lost their shape in the rains of a hundred years ago, the Lombardy Poplar or Plane-tree that was once a drysalter’s daughter and several common-councilmen, has withered like those worthies, and its departed leaves are dust beneath it.... Sometimes, the queer hall of some queer Company gives upon a churchyard such as this, and, when the Livery dine, you may hear them (if you are looking in through the iron rails, which you never are when I am) toasting their own Worshipful prosperity.... Sometimes, the commanding windows are all blank, and show no more sign of life than the graves below—not so much, for _they_ tell of what once upon a time was life undoubtedly.”