Ancient and Modern London
It is interesting, beyond a merely antiquarian point of view, to trace the progress of London from a walled town, covering about 700 acres, with a population half mercantile, half military, living in a labyrinth of courts and alleys, the majority being, as appears from an old proclamation, “heaped up together, and in a sort, half smothered.” Let us compare this with the majestic city of our day, spreading over more than 120 square miles, and containing 2600 miles of streets, flanked by 360,000 inhabited houses, with a population of 3,000,000, and an assessed rental of 13,000,000l.
Modern London embraces important portions of the four adjacent counties, and has swallowed up not only the old district, which is still designated “the City,” and its ancient suburbs, but numberless places formerly existing as distinct towns, villages, and hamlets, which in days gone by had their separate systems of local government. Under the present regulations, the Central Criminal Court district extends over an area of more than 700 square miles, including all Middlesex, and parts of Surrey, Kent, Essex, and Hertfordshire; which is also about the area of the Metropolitan Police District.—Alexander Pulling; Law Magazine, N.S., No. xxviii.