The Elephant and Castle, the best-known public-house in the world, had changed hands for forty thousand pounds. What an enormous price for one house of that size. Here again what surprising traffic! Day and night this goes on without cessation. Of course the people are fewer by night, but there are always some passing. There are always people of some kind passing this point. In the most quiet watches of the morning, from two to five, stragglers go by. Some coming home jaded after a night of pleasure, some heavy with the burden or the spoil of a night of crime, some to heal the sick, some to receive the last words of the dying, some to hear the first cry of the newborn, some flying from their homes for ever, some returning after an absence of many years, some fleeing in terror the scene of their first sin, some coming back after what is destined, though they know it not, to be a last carouse, some on their way to Bedlam, some on their way to Waterloo Bridge and the Morgue. London Road. What a world of suggestion there is in the name of this street, and what an arrogance! As though this were the only road leading to this enormous town. This vast concrement of humanity. Blow all the bugles of the British regular army. Sound the alarm: all the troops of the United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland that can be got together, are needed for the defence of London against a foreign foe. March them all in here, by this London Road. See the prodigious length they stretch to, the infantry in fours, the cavalry in twos, the artillery gun after waggon, waggon after gun. Men and horses, what a splendid show! Where will they find barrack-room, this army? Not in houses, surely. They must camp in the parks and squares. Mile after mile of men. Ten hours these men take to march through London Road, the infantry in fours, the cavalry in twos, the artillery waggon after gun, gun after waggon. Thirty miles of men, more than enough to allow a man for every ten yards in the circumference described within the twelve-mile radius. More than enough to stretch in a solid column marching in fours and twos from Her Majesty's Arsenal at Woolwich to Her Majesty's Castle at Windsor. This vast host, with all its baggage, could never find house-room even in vast London? As easily as a single traveller at a great hotel. Every year this town adds a greater number of souls to its millions that are in than army, absorbs a vastly greater number of horses, and ten times the personal baggage. For what are these thousands of men hurrying into this vast human camp every year? To seek employment, pleasure, oblivion, fame, instruction, solitude, wealth, friends--and to find in the end--a grave. Yearly an army equal to that just passed through London Road comes to increase London, over and above its yearly loss.