scenes," one of them representing Fitzjames and
Roderick Dhu before they have arrived at a
ghostly condition of existence, fighting their
celebrated combat. We could not help thinking—
and we saw clearly that Mr. Whelks was
of our opinion—that singular ingenuity had
been exercised in rendering the performance
(capable, under reasonable conditions, of being
made exceedingly pleasant and agreeable) as dull
and depressing as possible. Science, in the horrid
form of the magic lantern, sat upon the
meritorious performer and his audience like a
nightmare, making even the lovely Ellen appear
hideous; and some time before the curtain fell,
Mr. Whelks took his departure with a sigh of
relief.

This being the whole of the entertainment,
with the exception of the performance of "the
man with many voices," who was an excellent
and droll ventriloquist, we felt that
we had witnessed at once more entertaining
and more elevating performances at the
Polytechnic Institution in the days of its infancy,
when science was not so far advanced or
so astonishing as it is at the present time; and
that the effort to combine very mild amusements
with very feeble science was, in its
results, not quite worthy of a Royal Institution
founded for the diffusion of useful knowledge
combined with pleasant entertainment.

MENDING THE CITY'S WAYS.

IF time be money, then what an enormous
amount of time is lost every day where we
should least expect it—in the City of London!
Every day, a great army proceeds into and
returns out of the City, an army on foot and
wheels little less than three-quarters of a million
in number, all intent on business, all (the
exceptional idlers are so few that they are not
worth notice) anxious to get to work and to
finish the work in hand. But, within certain
well-known limits, haste and impatience are
irritated by irresistible delay. The foot-passenger
moves encumbered by a crowd, while as
to wheeled conveyances, the slowest waggons
are made more slow by perpetual halts, and the
swiftest carriages lose all possible advantages
of pace by being reduced to the walk of the
slowest.

The cause of the difficulty is not far to
seek. London, the centre of the commerce
of the world, "stands upon ancient ways."
In the course of a century which has multiplied
the commercial and financial business of
the City more than a hundred-fold, the
construction of new and the widening of old
thoroughfares has been practically insignificant.
As the strength of a chain depends on its
weakest link, so the value of a thoroughfare
must be measured by its narrowest strait.
Thus all traffic going west from, or east to, the
Bank must push through the Poultry, twenty-
four feet wide in the roadway; and all going
north and south from between the Bank and
Southwark must cross London-bridge, fifty-four
feet wide, footpaths included. The City of
London, the special seat of the congestion of
traffic under consideration, is as nearly as
possible one mile square, and contains a resident
population which, although it has steadily
diminished for the last sixteen years, is still more
dense per acre than any other district of the
metropolis of three millions of inhabitants and
more than one hundred miles square. For
more than sixty years the population of the City
proper has been fluctuating decennially up and
down, but for the last sixteen years it has
steadily diminished.

In 1801 the population of the City was
nearly at its highest point—one hundred and
twenty-eight thousand eight hundred. In the
next ten years it decreased by more than
seven thousand; in the next ten years, ending
in 1821, it had recovered four thousand of the
lost numbers; in 1831 it had declined below
one hundred and twenty-four thousand. By
1857 the population had risen to over one
hundred and twenty-nine thousand; and in
1861, the date of the last census, had fallen to
one hundred and thirteen thousand three
hundred and eighty-seven; since which date it is
believed that the destruction of dwelling-houses,
and the construction of warehouses and offices
on their site, have still further lessened the
number of sleepers who pass their nights in the
City.

During the latter half of this century, two
opposite influences have been at work.
Omnibuses, cheap private carriages, and suburban
railways, have drawn citizens from the rooms
over shops, to a gradually widening circle
round London, of villas and cottages, terraces
and towns, made accessible by good roads,
regular public conveyances, and an efficient
police; while, during the same period, the
growth of commerce and the increase of
moneyed as distinguished from landed
investments, and the facilities of travelling, have
brought a new numerous class of daily visitors
to do business in the City—to purchase, sell, or
invest. The west has business in the east; the
countryman does his own work in London, and
the meaning of the jokes of old-fashioned
genteel comedy, on citizens and clowns, who got
bewildered and robbed in London, is lost to
that numerous modem class whose reading is
confined to newspapers. The country squire,
the country shopkeeper, the farmer, the country
lawyer, all find their way to the City now and
then, as well as the trader, the professional and
the idle, and the noble and fashionable dwellers
in the west or court end of the metropolis.

The obstruction of traffic, with consequent
loss of time, has become more than a nuisance;
it threatens to become a national loss, unless
some decided steps are taken for relieving the
rising tide of City street traffic, which each
annual increase of surplus capital tends to swell.
Two dates give us the rate of increase of the
daily visitors of London proper. In 1848,
before the railway network had been developed