The Sun.
London, England, 1851-11-21 00:00:00

TIMES, Ocrom 21, 1851.

Far-seeing sages have bean busy prophesying all manner ofresnits
from the Great Exhibition. We have one before us—one which
none,of,them e'er dreamed ef. The Great Exhibition, amid the
other wonderful effects it produced, exhausted the " Post Office Di-
rectory" for 1851; and lest the whole commercial world of London
should be left without its guide and friend, the proprietors of that
valuable work have at this unusually early period issued their volume
for the year that, is to come. Armed with this infallible weapon—,
for, indeed, its accuracy is se great as to deserve the name as much,
a 3 anything of the kind—one may pierce the remotest fastnesses of
London, and count its Smiths, Joneses, Johnsons, and Browns. Fork
one who has the time it is worth while to scrutinise the unseeing cor-
rectness with which this volume discriminates the whole mass of
London life into some 2,500,000 names, and how it depicts and takes
to pieces the minutest works or the vast machine that fills the valley
of the Thames. The book is one of our standing wonders. In
utility, excellence of typography, care, and trustworthiness, it can-
not be surpassed; and not the least remarkable feature about it is
the very recent ch angea recorded in its pages: For instance,
here in this volume of more than 2,000 pages, which was printed
on the 13th of October, we find inserted in the " Parliamentary
Directory,", at pp. 1,738 and 1,749, the name of the lion.
Captain A. Duncombe, R.N., who was elected as Member for the,'
East Riding only six days previously—namely, on the 7th of
October ; and in page 40, in the list of the Privy Council Office, the
name of Lord Liverpool is struck out, though his death was not
recorded in the "Times" till the 6th of October. To the commer-
cial world it would be quite as necessary to deliver a lecture on
the general benefits of sunshine, as to speak of the merits of the
" Directory,' and to all Londoners who want to know anything of
the world they live in it is inestimable. The present volume is dis-
tinguished by the same internal and external advantages as those
which have so long characterised its predecessors.
[The fact above adduced, that in the " Directory" the name of,
Lord Liverpool, whose death had been recorded only on the 6th of
October, was struck out in page 40, in the list of Privy.Cloutseil, is a
happy illustration of the rapidity with whisk the information con-
tained in the work is compiled and published. So striking an
example of the excellenee of the "Directory" has naturally caused,
some comment; and the present appears a fitting opportunity of,
calling attention to the entire facts of the cave:-An Earl, who is;
a Privy Councillor, appears in the " Post Office London Directory,"
Ist, in the list of Privy Council; 2d, in the " Street Directory;"
3d, in the " Court Director, ;" 4th, in the list of Earls ; Sth, in the
Alphabetical list of Peers ; 6th, in the Alphabetical list of the
Surnames of Peers ; 7th, in the titles of the Eldest Sons of Peers.
Tire correction?, rendered necessary by the death of the Earl of
Liverpool, only recorded on the 6th of October, were actually
carried into five of these, seven parts (the two others having before
been printed off), in a Work consisting of W,OBO Imperial Octavo
pages; and the book was printed, bound, and distributed, so that the
Reviews of it in the newspapers commenced on the 14th of the same
month. Although we believe that it is not possible to adopt mea-
sures which shall ensure greater promptitude or accuracy, we Should
trot have called public attention to a matter which, with our ar-
is a mere thing of course, but for comments which have
b
on this particular point. It was on account of the
'ed impossibility of competing with our arrangements that
rta the
nergm?
Proprietors
made ei e
dns g
of " Robson's Directory" took leave of their sub-
scribers in the following terms :
" Bowtrell and Co., Proprietors and Publishers of Robson's
London Directory,' beg to acquaint their subscribehrs, that with the
volume for the present year that work has terminated.
" It has been fbund impossible longer to contend with the ' Post
Office Directory,' a work combining large capital, with un-
equalled resources of every kind requisite for the proper production
of a Directory of the metropolis. These advantages place that
work on such an elevation that further competition with it would
be as injurious to Bowtell and Co. as it would be unjust to their
subscribers."
" Post Office Directory" are conducted have, as is well known,
And since this was put forth, the arrangements under which the
been 'very materially strengthened.—Editors of "Post Office
London Directory.")

MORNING CHRONICLE, OCTOBER 15, 1851.
In an age prolific of books this is the most extraordinary, and we
feel almost compelled to say, the most useful of all. It is a miracle
of human industry—a miracle of human skill —a proof of the tri-
umphs resulting from an ultimate combination of the temporary di•
vision of labour —an argument for the superiority of London over
evrymaekercs:tyartidn
bthooekN‘cvormldp—ilearsndwahan etsxaoeymeprl.c tomsall
ip:ft isehmtyers,
publeation ; it enjoys all the advantages of its proprietors'
-catalogue
-
nual
fifty-two years of experience. The classification, once complex
managed,cathnahtereveerbye
swmo,rkismnaoywbseo admjbly
expected
rato
afford
found, and found without difficulty, by persons to whom the search
is a novelty, and the volume unknown. The stranger may here be
ialnfmormostattoionn racischhawisu a
guided, and the Londoner, at each year's end, refresh kis in-
formation as to the whereabouts of his old friends. The statist,
too, suddenly called upon for his figures, may joyfully find refirge
by ready access to his Directory, where he will learn how
many churches and how many schools, how many clergy and how
many lawyers, how metropolisbakers and how many butchers, are re-
quired in.this mighty to satisfy the spiritual, intellectual,
and physical wants of its two million and a half of inhabitants.
The teetotaller may recreate himself by marking in each street
at each corner of a street, and in every parish, the appearance
or disappearance of some public-house ; he may compare rB5l with
1841, with 1831 ; see where temperance has progressed, and where
gin-palaces are still in the ascendant; he may trace back " mine
host " from hotel to inn, from inn to beer-shop. and point the moral
of some ihture speech by extracts of the evidence here given of the
fortunes gained, the fortunes also lost, by the sale of intoxicating
liquors. The topographer may correct his chart by the information
which he must hence derive; that new streets have arisen since he
thought his labours concluded ; the historian may note where fluc-
tuations in the p vulation have occurred; the politician may ob-
serve that here, from some cause which he must try to discover,
commerce and her attendant man are restless, and seeking new
positions—that there is some attraction rapidly becoming the centre
of a new system, hitherto not called into operation. The student
of the times generally may end, occasionally, an operatives' asso-
ciation occupying a house in a good street, and be only brought to
anything like a state of equanimity again by a discovery of the fact.
that great slop-shops, and other East-end abominations, are making
the r way westwards, if not at a greater pace, at any rate with more
show and circumstance, than the humbler trading establishments of
the Christian Socialists. If the inquiring mind penetrates, in print,
the district of the Temple, the result will be astonishment at the
number Of old,names gone, reflections on the mutability of the most
immutable ofprofessions, and a discovery, if the search be persevered
in, that the lost barristers are not dead, bat only localises. in the
provincEB ; if, finally (which, since the world generally is nut
contemplative, seems not improbable), the scrutineer wants only to
discover an address, he may do so in a minute, and he may be sure,
unless the object of his solicitude be very flighty, that it is correct—
..dienatthh eofLordS
Parliamentarytafford departmentwasbut a w
oefekthslins since noticed
correct—
we, at least, assure him that it would have been so up to within a
fortnight of the publication of the volume before us. "Ex uno disce
in
our The
columns:
we find the full Christian names of the new Lord. with such other
change of particulars as the circumstances required. Yet the volume
kept thus minutely accurate contains more than two thousand
closely printed pages. Who shall conceive the watchful diligence
bestowed upon its every-day revisal ? But we need not insist upon
qualities which cannot be denied ; we need not recommend ai useful
what recommends itself as indispensable. Good classification, and
incessant care, in marking alterations, are the essential qualities of
a Directory; and both these qualities this Directory has to per-
fection.