The Sun.
London, England, 1855-11-10 00:00:00

POST-OFFICE LONDON DIRECTORY

For 1856.

A wonderful work, becoming every successive
! year more and more wonderful—altogether the
hugest and the most accurate of all our popular
I compilations—at once official, commercial, postal,
I legal, political, and topographical ! Extraordinary
as the book is, however, as a detailed and micros-
copic Index to LONDON, it is scarcely surprising,
after all, that it should be so, considering the en-
terprise lavished upon the undertaking by its pro-
prietor—one who has, from first to last, shown
himself to be altogether as energetic and adven-
turous as he has at length proved himself to be
iriumpliantly successful. Frederick Kelly's Post-
office London. Directory for the year of our Lord
1856, being the " fifty-seventh" of its annual pul.)=
lication, appears now wholly without any rival
whatsoever. It walks over the course without a
competitor. It long ago "turned the Corner," as
the phrase is, leaving the rest of the field at first
in the ruck, and at last, nowadays, tailed away
"nowhere." Consequently it wins the race
easily enough henceforth, coming in at a canter,
without ever turning a hair, and always,
as we umpires (the reviewers) are compelled to de-
clare in the most beautiful condition. Aud this
although carrying weight, remember I the weight
of 2,650 octavo pages—printed, some of them in
double columns, some triple, some actually quad-
ruple ! The mere " reading "of the work (techni-
cally) is something quite bewildering to contem-
plate, to say nothing of the compositor's labour of
massing all these millions of types together in due
order—minion, brevier, bourgoise ; putting, be-
sides, entirely out of account the vast preliminary
toil of revision, of scrupulous and minute revision,
every year, in regard to each atom of information
conveyed to the public through the medium of this
enormous tome under the twelve ample divisions
into which its contents are now very judiciously
apportioned. Prior to the commencement of these
twelve remarkable divisions, however, there
are no less than xxviii. precursory pages, within
whose limits are condensed extraordinary con-
geries, so to speak, of eminently useful and ac-
ceptable intelligence. Comprising among them,
for example, in the particular volume now lying
before us for examination, an almanac for the
ensuing year leap year as it happens —1856.
Followed by a "General Index " of the most com-
prehensive character, together with a page of
notes upon the matter of "Bill and Receipt
Stamps," as recently modified by the Imperial
Legislature, besides an astonishingly extended
catalogue of the principal hotels and inns through-
out England and Wales, mentioning the names of
the occupiers, and particularising, according to
the records of the last census, the precise amount. .
of the local population. Beyond which another,
the last, of these precursory pages of memo-
randa gives a list of the forty-four English,
Irish, and Scotch " Chambers of Commerce."
Then, " comes the tug of war "—the Post-
(Vice London, Directory, beginning at length in
real earnest with the first of its twelve bread
divisions. The Post-Office London OFFICIAL Di-
rectory for 1856—comprising an alphabetical list
of persons holding situations under the Crown, in
the East India House, in the Bank of England, in
the various law, city, and all other public offices.
! A catalogue, including within it every official per-
son in the land, from the highest to the lowest, from
the Lord High Chancellor, in his solemn and almost
awful responsibility as keeper of her Majesty's con-
science, down to the obscurest clerk in a back room
at Somerset-house, nibbing his pen, cracking his
knuckles, or yawning over his newspaper. After-
wards a catalogue of the " Royal Fanilly," fol-
lowed by another of the "Princes and Princesses,"
and then in proper sequence by a list of " Her
Majesty's Chief Officers of State"—a list display-
ing two notable blanks, yet to be filled up,
opposite the title of " Postmaster Gene-
ral" and. that of "Secretory .of State for the
Colonial Department :" posts vacant, as we most df
us grieve to remember, by reason of, the death Of
Sir Williath Molesworth' and'of the norninn,tiolk
of Viscount Canning to the great proconsulate of
Hindostan. "Her Majesty's Household" affords
the materials for the next extended catalogue-,
after which follow the " Privy Councillors," -and
after these in turn the various "Lords-Lieutenant."
Subsequently come the " Government • aiid' `other
Public Offices " alphabetically arranged-‘—a
cat l-
logne extending from the occupants of, the AJj4---,
taut-General's Office down to- those in the
different offices embraced within the "categdry'
of the War Department. Whereupon suc6ee(l, in
duo course, lists of Ambassadors, and of Consuls,
and particulars worthy of remembrance in regard
to Passports and to Fereign-office Regulations.

Inunedi:ately afterwarth wolve the secon‘l portion
of this gigantic and elaborate compilation—The
Post office LOIRIOII STREET Directory for 1836
alphabetically leading us through all the mazcs Fri
our vast metropolis, fioni Abbey-lano, West Ham,
to Zoar-place, East Brixton. Next We have the

largest Directory in the volume, spreading over a
surface as extended as from page 813 to page 1,501
—The Post-office London COMMERCIAL Directory
for 1856—from one, Benjamin Aaron, a w itch-
maker, to another, Nicholas Zygonialas, a corn
merchant. Afterwards comes the fourth instal-
ment—The Post- office London TRADES' Directory
for 1856—beginning with academies and makers of
accordions, and ending with zycographic printers
and lithographers, reminding us of the babJ of
the industry of our ever-toiling population
of two millions and a-half—the clash and
clang and roaring din and hubbub resounding
from all kinds of strangely-diversified avocations.
Fifthly, there spreads out before us the sufficiently
ample catalogue of—The Post office London LAW
Directory for 1856—embracing within it, Attorneys
and Solicitors, Barristers-at-Law, S ergeants,
Queen's Counsel, Recorders, and Judges, ascend-
ing the rungs of the ladder indeed from among
a throng of court-keepers and train-bearers--up
from the junior aspirants, fumbling at the first, to
the topmost round of all, where, perched on the
ample cushion of the woolsack, sits in ermine, and
scarlet, and gold, the dingy student of law glori-
fied into Chancellor. Sixthly, we have—The Post-
office London COURT Directory for 1856—encum-
bered with all the pomps of the alphabet, inti-
mated through such potent initials as are the re-
cognised symbols of dignity in civilised life—
D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., F.S.A., G.C.8., H.R.H.,
and the like stars of honour, and ribbons of cour-
tesy, the tags and spangles of personal distinction.
Subsequently, and seventhly, comes—The Post-
office London PARLIAMENTARY Directory for
1856—giving us the House of Lords from the
Chancellor downwards, and the House of Com-
mons from the Speaker to the very door-keepers.
Eighthly, we have The POSTAL Directory—ninthly,
The CITY Directory—tenthly, The CONVEYANCE
Directory—eloventhly, The BANKING Directory—
and, twelfthly and lastly, The ASSURANCE Direc-
tory for 1856—completing the entire work up to
the advertisements appended. under the title of
"Miscellaneous." Such, rapidly epitomised, is
Kelly's Post-Office London Directory for the ensu-
ing year of grace, 1856, the only London Directory
published for 1856—" Watkins's Directory" having
been at length definitively abandoned, after a loss,
it appears, more serious than has ever before been
experienced in the futile endeavour to establish a
publication of this particular kind. The utter
inutility of any such attempt, supposing it to have
proved in the end successful, is vividly enough
forced upon the popular apprehension by the re-
mark here put forth by the Messrs. Kelly to the
effect that Two London Directories, if both were
accurate and comprehensive, would be, after all,
nothing more nor less than counterparts of
each other. Arguing from which point it is
observed, not unreasonably, that the effort to
establish another nowadays, with Kelly's Directory
firmly established as at present upon the broad andsolid basis of its reputation, would be as idle,rienrau_
re-
gard to any notion of such an effort provingdeaour to
nerative, as would be a quixotic en
construct a second railway from
net line already
parallel with the costly and sufficient
huge volume
Lo.n .r! t °Brighton
in existence. Remembering that t
of from 2,000 to 3,000 closely-pays we have said,
ted pages, in
columns of letterpress, sornetiamnq
d sometimes even
double, sometimes triple,an _s
yesterday evening,
quadruple, came into ourevrb
had
t astonishing to learn
the 9th instant, it
thatissom
the whole vast tome has
from the "Preface"te -
d and bound since the sth
been entirely prineiai_y
observable, in addition to
ultimo I
it i 8 e
remarked upon the mauni-
what we have alreadytie
same time the inutene t's
f
tude and yet at
nblication, that the • 88 o
publica , extinction of
this astonish]
t
consequen upon the non-continu-
all oppo,sitionk.
ns's Directory "
ance of Watkins does not appear to
any way
relaxed the efforts made by
have inor of Kelly's Post.
the proprietoffice London Direc-
tory to sustain the reputation of his
unrivalled
pub-
lication for novelty and exactitude of intelligence.
In testimony of which it is obserVable that the open-
ing of the West End Branch of the Bank of Eng-
land, has caused alterations in the Street Direc-
tory, p. 204 ; Commercial ditto, p. 842 ; Banking
ditto, p. 2,458, and official, p. 43. The establish-
ment of the "Jews' College," on the IstOctober, in
Finsbury-square, being notified in the Street Direc-
tory, p. 340, in the commercial ditto, p. 1,146, and
in the Trades, p. 1,887. The death of Lord Dela-
mere—mentioned in The Sun as recently as the
4th of October—being intimated here by changes in
the Parliamentary Directory at page 2,228 thatof Jolla Hardy, Esq., a retired Q.(;.--announced
L lin The Sun, also on the 4th of October—erasing
his name from the Street Directory, p. 618 (as
from th e Court
1 occupant of 3, Portland-place), and