The Night Side of LondonRitchie, J. Ewing (James Ewing)
History
The Night Side of London
Ritchie, J. Ewing (James Ewing)
London (England) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
parishes. Of the nine in Surrey three are unions, consisting, one of two
parishes, another of three, and the third of six parishes. The remaining
six are all single parishes, each administering its own affairs. The
total population of these districts is 2,500,000; the average number of
paupers to be dealt with 105,000; the amount of expenditure for the year
ending Lady-day, 1856, was £875,000; and the net rateable value of the
property contributing to the relief of the poor was £10,900,000. The
proportion which the metropolis bore to the whole of England and Wales
was, as to population, one-eighth; as to pauperism, one-twelfth.
London has 10,500 distinct streets, squares, circuses, crescents,
terraces, villas, rows, buildings, places, lanes, courts, alleys, mews,
yards, rents. The paved streets of London, according to a return
published in 1856, number over 5000, and exceed 2000 miles in length; the
cost of this paved roading was 14 millions, and the repairs cost
£1,800,000 per annum. The Post Office employs 3200 officials in London
alone. London contains 1900 miles of gas pipes, with a capital of nearly
£4,000,000 spent in the preparation of gas. The cost of gas-lighting is
half a million. It has 360,000 lights; and 13,000,000 cubic feet of gas
are burnt every night. Last year along these streets the enormous
quantity of upwards of 80 millions of gallons of water rushed for the
supply of the inhabitants, being nearly double what it was in 1845. Mr
Mayhew says, if the entire people of the capital were to be drawn up in
marching order, two and two, the length of the great army of Londoners
would be no less than 670 miles, and supposing them to move at the rate
of three miles an hour, it would require more than nine days and nights
for the average population to pass by. To accommodate this crowd,
125,000 vehicles pass through the thoroughfares in the course of 12
hours; 3000 cabs, 10,000 private and job carriages and carts, ply daily
in the streets; at the present time there are upwards of 800 omnibuses
running along various routes in the metropolis, and of this number 595
are the property of a single and mostly foreign proprietary, the London
General Omnibus Company. 600 omnibuses, with horses and harness and
goodwill, were purchased by the company for a sum of £400,000, or for
very nearly £700 for each vehicle. The 595 omnibuses of the company ran
in London, in the week ending 31st of October, 1857, not less than
222,779 miles, or nearly ten times the circumference of the globe, and
they carried not less than 920,000 passengers. Assuming that the
remaining one-fourth of the London omnibuses, not belonging to the
company, carried an equal proportion, we shall have, as the travelling
portion of the population of London, 1,115,000 persons. 3000 conveyances
enter the metropolis daily from the surrounding country. In the year
1856 the total revenue derived from the duty on omnibuses within the area
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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