The Sun.
London, England, 1847-01-14 00:00:00

MORNING CHRONICLE, Nov. 20, 1846

The powers of expansion exhibited by this most useful annual
Volume appears really unlimited. Published during a series of forty-
eight 3 ears in a metropolis whose dwellings increase in number by an
Yearly average of some 14,000, and whose commerce expands in still
larger measure, the " Post-office Directory" has become enormously
enhanced in bulk, as also in the complicated variety of its indis-
pensable contents. The admirable success with which the really
enormous difficulties of his task has been overcome by the inde-
fatigable publisher has been proved by the experience of many years;
arid we need say little more than that the present volume presents
the same tokens as its predecessors, of intelligent method and inge-
nuity of arrangement, in packing into reasonable compass, and pro-
ducing in lucid order, its millions of facts and references. Within
2,000 pages every man may learn everything he ought to know about
every one of his co-dwellers in the great metropolis, their businesses,
as well as everything necessary to facilitate him in his own. The
very rapid extension of our railway system, and the new postal ar-
rangements with some continental states, have rendered necessary
some extensive additions to the sections appropriated to Conveyance
and the Post-office. We find the information given under those heads
not only as full and accurate as it was well possible to make them,
but more new and recent than we should have thought attainable in
a work of such magnitude. Prefixed to the volume is about the best
map of Landon we happen to have met with.
• i",
1101MINCI:-.11ERALD, Nov. 21, 1846.
s the proportions of this indispensable work have hitherto
been, the volume for 1847 comes forth under circumstances of still
further enlargement. The experience of 47 years has obviously en-
abled the proprietor, Mr. Frederick Kelly, to produce a Directory of
unrivalled completeness, wherein every species of fact likely to be
wanted by the merchant and the trader is placed within convenient
access. The volume contains upwards of two thousand closely-
printed royal octavo pages, betokening a singular amount of indus-
try as a matter of compilation, and awakening astonishment at the
comprehensiveness of the machinery which could bring within a
common focus se much varied and scattered intelligence—embracing
as it does a multiplicity of heads, and involving the services of vast
numbers of contributors. We believe that the present volume is not
to be matched in the whole world ; for such a mammoth aggregate
of local and specific information is no less a typographical wonder,
than a prodigious monument of diligence and enterprise.
Some dozen or so of separate directories are included in this huge
periodical—the only one, it seems, of the annual tribe destined to a
Permanent existence—a veritable triumph, indeed, of the utilitarian
Principle over the ornamental. The "Official Directory" is a key to
the whole of the Government Offices, and a record of official perso-
liatres. This is followed by a " Street Directory," exhibiting the
tradesmen
in every thoroughfare, and the points at which the streets
are intersected by those at right:angles ; while the " Commercial and
Professional Directory" is an alphabetical arrangement of the above.
Then comes a " Trades' Directory," in which the names are allocated
tinder their respective callings. The " Law Directory" is a list of the
judges, Queen's counsel. serjeants, barristers. attorneys. &c. with a
Catalogue of the. various courts of law, their officers, and their pecu-
liarities of jurisdiction. The "Court Directory" comprises the ad-
dresses of the nobility and gentry; and the " Parliamentary Direc-
tory" is a record of the Members of the Houses of Lords and Com-
mons, with an alphabetical list of the boroughs, cities, and counties
returning Members to Parliament, the surnames and eldest sons of
peers, &c. The " Postal Directory" contains the hour of receipt and
delivery of every post-office in the kingdom ; the cities anti principal
places throughout the world to which mails are dispatched from
London; the rates of foreign postage; the railway mails, and the
eross•road mails, &c. The "City Directory" registers the civic au-
thorities, the public companies, the brokers, the incumbents and mi-
nisters of churches and chapels, the newspapers, &c. ; and the
"Conveyance Directory" includes the railway tables, the coach and
booking-offices, the wharfs, Sec. The volume closes with Banking
and 'Assurance Directories. These various heads will serve to indi-
cate the multitudinous nature of the contents ; for out of them come
a variety of subordinate directories, which meet every conceivable
want, presenting a curious analysis of the public and private institu-
tions of the metropolis and of the commercial world. Every person
is to be fousid under his proper section, from a prime minister down
to a sheriff's officer—every establishment, from a palace to a lodg-
ing.honse. The Editor, in his Preface, takes occasion to congratu-
late himself on the many improvements he has this year introduced,
Principally flowing from the employment of " selected agents," in-
stead of the ordinary carriers of the Post-office. Among the specific
alterations the new postage treaty with Prussia, which comes into
operation on the Ist of January, 1847, and disturbs to a considerable
extent the rates of postage over a great part of the Continent, seems
the most important.