The Sun.
London, England, 1864-12-24 00:00:00

CONIMERCIAL,

Cotton steady and unchanged. Gold, 2341 ;
Seven Thirties, 1211 ; Five• Twenties, 1091 ; Sixes
of 81, 1181 ; Illinois Central, 130 ; Erie, 94; Read-
ing, 137; Sterling One, 93-. Money easy. Sugar
steady• Iron dull. Lead firm. Crude Petroleum.
56; Rtfined, 96. Oil dull. The CAnad ian mails
of the 27th November have not reached the city.

The Post-office London Directory for 1865,

Again the mammoth Directory of our giant
metropolis makes its minuet appearance. It comes
before us this time a little later than usual, almost
immediatety before New Year's-day—in point of
fact, only upon this the very eve of Christmas.
There is no help seeing the Book, or being aware
of the fact of its publication. It is too big to be
overlooked. It is among guide-books like
a burly quarto from Brobdignag among
the duodecimos of Lilliput. The present is
the sixty-sixth year of its publication. It is
consequently three years past the attaiement of its
grand climacteric. And it looks it ! It looks for
all the world as if it were hopeless to dream of ever
applying to it, with any chance of a good result, a
course of Bantingism. Nevertheless, vast and com-
plicated though the labyrinth of this huge Direc-
tory unquestionably • is, there is a clue
furnished to us through all its intricacies—a
clue discernible in the simple fact of its
careful sub-division under the several heads of—
Official, Streets, Commercial, Law, Court, Parlia-
mentary, Postal, City, Conveyances, Banking, and
Assurances. Each of these divisions or sub divi-
sions of the work being arranged with the minutest
care, alphabetically, any required atom out
of this otherwise chaotic mountain of in-
formation called London, can be observed at
an instant's novice, and scrutinised sepa-
rately. Upwards of 2,800 double or treble
columned pages of closely packed but perfectly
legible t 3 pography (to be precise, exactly 2,812
pages altogether), constitute the gigantic tome of
" The London Directory" for 1865. Ciose upon three
thousand pages crammed full of useful, practical,
cautiously sifted, and in many instances,
thoroughly authentic and reliable information !
It has been curiously calculated by the
compilers themselves that upon each of these 2,812
pages of printed matter, there are as many as
10,000 distinct letters. Clubbing together the
Directory for London and the companion volume,
which will be found separately reterred to below
(the Directory for Lancashire), the latter containing
no less than 2,220 pages, each of them of exactly
similar dimensions, there are, at the rate
of 10,000 letters per page, virtually more
Altogether than fifty million individual letters,
—Yea ! to repeat the fact in numerals, so
hat there may be no mistake about it, over
50,000,000! Fifty million letters, moat of which
nes had to pass through the fingers of the compo-
sitors, and under t. e searching observation of the
printer's reader in his correction of the proof
sheets! The weight of types so employed, it
has been further estimated by the same inge-
nious calculator, is equivalent to thirty-three tons
of metal ! It is intimated in so many
words, in the course of 'he Preface to the London
Directory for 1865, that--" Besides the ordinary
alterations arising • from deaths, changes of resi-
dence, Sec., many sweeping changes have been
made in this diiision during the present year to
correspond with alterations in the names end Mlllla
berrigs of streets by authority of the Metropolitan
Board of Works." It being added that no less than
forty-five streets have been re-named, while several
long roads, such as the New Kent-road and the
Holloway-road, have been re-numbered, and about
sixty-five names of now streets introduced. Especial
note ought to be taken, we cannot bat think, of the
following intimation put forth by the compilers of
this immense guide-book through all the mazes
of London and -Westminster, an eXtract
that we might head significantly with vete
bunt sap—" Among other views of the Street
Directory," it is there said " it enables any one to
judge of the character of a street—whether it is
occupied by merchants, by private residents, or by
retail shopkeepers, and to it a reference would free
quently prevent manufacturers and traders becom-
ing the victims of swindlers. If a firm consisting
of high-sounding names and giving large orders for
goods is not to be found in the Directory, and it
Appears the house they date from is a ceffae-shop,
reading-room, or other place where letters are taken
in, further inquiry should be made before the order
la executed." It may really be said, without ex-
travagaeco—and more could hardly be said—that,
under its present energetic proprietary, "The Post
Office London Directory" has grown of late years
in proportion with the wealth, the trade, the traffic,
the dimensions of the stupendous metropolis of
which it is the one authoritative and unrivalled
Handbook.

Kelly's Post Office Directory of Lancashire, Liver.
pool, and Manchester.
The present volume, which is the second edition
of the Directory of Lancashire, forms one of e
series of Directories of the counties of England,
differing from those hitherto published by other
compilers, in giving a topographical account anti
list of the whereabouts not only of the many impor-
tant towns, but of every village, and township
throughout the country, It also contains au amount
of information on other matters of the highest
importance to every commercial establishment of
the United Kingdom. We have not only the
' lists above referred to, but appended to each place
there are lists of the county magistracy, tke poet
and money order offices, the insurance company's
agent 3, the newspapers, with their days of publica-
tion, the hotels, and of the principal seats of the
nobility and gentry in Lancashire so arranged that
reference to each can be instantly made. The work
nas been comp:led by the same staff of experience°
agents who prepare Kelly's " London Directory,"
and no expense apparently has been spared to
render the directory of the wealthy and
important county as much superior to any work DI
the same character hitherto published as the London
Directory has proved usually to be. Appended to
Lancashire, are Liverpool and Manchester as postal
maps, the size of the two latter being six miles to
the inch, but so clearly engraved that they will
maintain the character of the book for easy refer-
ence. Altogether the Directory, corrected as it is
down to the very latest moment of publication, is
an important addition to the books of reference for
the publication of which the Messrs. Kelly have
become so remarkable,

The new Opera House in Vienna is now entirely com-
pleted, and the interior decoration is in progress. Five painters
and sculptore chosen from the most distinguished of the
capital are engaged in this task. In the loggia, the paint-
ing of which is confided to M. do Schwind, marble statues
of Mozart, Beethoven, Gluck, Haydn, and Schubert, will
be placed. In the " fogei," or crush room, there are to be
busts also in marble of Meyerbeer, Weber, Spohr, Cheru-
bini, Bellini, Marschner, Donizetti, Nicolai Wergl, Cima-
rasa, lireutzer, A über, Rossini, and Verdi. This depart.
meat is confided to M. Geigen. Commenced at the same
time as the new Opera at Paris, it is asserted that the new
Viennese building will rival it in magnificence.
The reported death of Mr Savill Kent, father of
the child whose murder at Road in the summer of 1860
ottuied so inuch excitement. is aClEArrnaa