THE capital of the British Empire, often called the Hodern Babylon, is the greatest city in the worId. Its population eqals that of Ireland or Scotland. Its immensity has long been the theme of native and foreign writers and the life of its swarming millions always produces a strong impression on the visitor. I have seen the greatest wonder which the world can show to the astonished spirit, the poet Heins wrote. I have seen it and am still astonished-forever will there remain fixed indelibly on my memory the stone forcst of houses amid which flows the rashiug stream of facw of living men with all their varied passions and all their terrible impulses of love, of hunger and of hatred-I mean London. So vast is London that people who live in one part of London know little or nothing about another and can easily lose their way in the labyrinth of anfamiliar streets. In 1881 John Bright said I have spent six months there every year for forty years, and yet I how nothing about it. I do not believe A Guide to Cities that there is a man in it who is fairly acquainted with all the pats and districts of that vast city. JVc how very little of the carly history of London. It was a Celtic settlement when the Romans arrived. Aulus built a fort there in 43. Though a Iargo place, it n7as of no strategical importanoc, and Suctonius abandoned it to the rebels under Roadicea in 61. Soon afterwards a bridge was built with a fort to protect the northern end. Tho western limit of this fort was probabIy where London Stone now stands in Cannon Street. Tho houses multiplied about the fort, but the settlement was not walled until 369. The enclosure was then an area of 380 acres. The Picts and Scots were unable totake it. The Romans having withdrawn in 410, the city was in the utmost disorder, Yhcn the Britons were defcated by the heathen Saxons in 457, they retreated to London. We hear nothing more of the city until 604, when it is an unimportant placc with ruined walls held by the King of the East Saxons. It was open to all invaders, until it was fiaalIy buned and deserted by the Danes in 830. Fifty years Iater, Alfred saw the great military value of the place. In 886 he repaired the wall and founded the present city of London. For citizens be chose English, Danes, and French and German settlers indifferently so that very early the population was mixed. In Alfrcds laws, a man who had crossed the sea thrice in his ovn boat was worthy of citizenship thaneright. Tater kings encouraged the commerce of thc port and the fortifications were not neglected, so that 12 Tho City of London London was the only place in England that could withstand the Dsnea. In 982, the city suffered from a terribIe fire, but the walls and gates were not injured. The Solthtvark end of the bridge mmrlst have been well fortified because, in ordor to get above the bridge, Canutc had to dig a canal around Southvark for his boats. When Canute became king, Londons tribute was one-seventh of the entire sum contributed by the country...