Читать книгу Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar онлайн

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The metropolis comprises considerably over one hundred thousand foreigners from every part of the habitable globe.

It contains more Roman Catholics than Rome itself, more Jews than the whole of Palestine, more Irish than Belfast, more Scotchmen than Aberdeen, and more Welshmen than Cardiff.

Its beershops and gin-palaces are so numerous that their frontages, if placed side by side, would stretch from Charing-cross to Chichester, a distance of sixty-two miles.

If all the dwellings in London could thus have their frontages placed side by side they would extend beyond the city of York.

London has sufficient paupers to occupy every house in Brighton.

The society which advocates the cessation of Sunday labour will be surprised to learn that sixty miles of shops are open every Sunday.

With regard to churches and chapels, the Bishop of London, examined before the House of Lords in the year 1840, said:—

“If you proceed a mile to the eastward of St. Paul’s you will find yourself in the midst of a population, the most wretched and destitute of mankind, consisting of artificers, labourers, beggars, and thieves, to the amount of from three to four hundred thousand souls. Throughout this entire quarter there is not more than one church for every ten thousand inhabitants, and in two districts there is but one church for forty-five thousand persons.”