The Sun.
London, England, 1851-01-08 00:00:00

ATLAS, NOVEMBER 16, 1850,

Year after year adds to the wonders of this digest of tke most
wonderful of modern cities. "London." said 31. Scribe, "is not a
city, but an agglomeration of divers interests, passions, and preju-
dices." 'Whatever these may be, they are all tabled in this volume,
with a completeness and accuracy without a parallel. We scarcely
know which to be the most proud of—the enormous city which could
furnish materials for such a work, or the industry and enterprise
necessary to reduce to order such a complex variety of facts, which
make the volume as interesting to the curious as it is indispensable
to men of business. The volume this year extends to 2,091 pages.
The classification is the same as usual ; in fact, it WAS impossible to
improve upon it. 'We have examined for ourselves many of the new
references for the present year, and can bear testimonyto their per-
fect accuracy.

BELL'S WEEKLY MESSENGER, DECEMBER 7, 1850.
We congratulate Mr. Kelly on the appearance of the: fifty-second
edition of this most valuable publication. To convey a correct idea
by description of the enormous: amount of labour which must have
been employed in collecting and arranging the materials, or of the
variety of the subjects comprised In this Directory, is beyond our
power. A mere enumeration of the general heads under which
these subjects are placed would fill a cohnon of our paper. Suffice

it, therefore, to say, that to the merchant, the trader, the lawyer, the
tanker—in fact, to every class of the community whose business
may lead them to require the aid of a Directory, ➢lr. Kelly's volume
is indispensable.

MINING JOURNAL, NovEsrsEa 16, 1850.
The old adage, that " a great book is a great evil," is triumphantly
falsified by the annual publication of this imposing volume, with its
2,000 pages, and its vast mass of practical information. All competi-
tors, at all approaching the same comprehensive scale, have lately
dropped off; so that the work, both in its dimensions and the im-
mense variety of information i t affords, is now unique. It stands
alone, and is I:kely long to remain so in the extent of its resources
the collective array of details of streets and squares of the great
metropolis and inhabitants thereof. The admirable classification and
arrangement of this mass of information forms, perhaps, its most
striking feature and the secret of its usefulness, since under its various
heads—" Official," " Commercial," " Trades," " Parliamentary,"
" Banking," Btc.—the required fact may almost infallibly be ascer-
tained. It cannot be presumed that there is any apparent improve-
ment on its predecessors of the last few years, since the arrange-
ments hardly admitted of a change for the better. There is ample
evidence, however, that the 52nd volume of the Directory contains
the latest changes up to the time of its appearance—in that respect
doing vast credit to the watchful care bestowed upon
its contents down to the minutest details. In a word, it em-
bodies a dozen Directories in one, each under its separate depart-
ment containing the precise information calculated to be of practical
use to the public for whom it has been so elaborately compiled.

LITERARY GAZETTE, NOVEMBER 16, 1850.
This massive volume, which yearly increases in size and useful-
ness, has made its usual appearance. The Inhabitants of London are
catalogued for us by the editors, not only alphabetically, but accord-
ing to their occupations and residences. A " Parliamentary Direc•
tory," a "Postal Directory," and
" City," " Conveyance," " Bank-
ing." and " Assurance Directories," contain under their respective
heads every item of information that can be useful, so admirably
arranged as to be instantly accessible. No resident in the metropolis
should be without the " Post Office Directory." It is as necessary
and serviceable to tke Nobleman and the Esquire, as it is absolutely
essential to the Banker, the Lawyer, the Merchant, the Manufac-
turer, and the Tradesman.

BRITANNIA, NOVEMBER 16, 1850.
MODERN BABYLON,
The advertisement sheets of a leading journal have with justice
been characterised as the miniature of the wants, the wisnes, and
the employments of the nation, of which a perfect Directory would
be the daguerreotype. Such a sun-painting of living London now lies
before us, comprised in a mass of paper and print that frights us
to behold. More than two thousand pages of close printing, and many
columns in each page, are required to chronicle the residences and the
occupations, not of London en masse, but merely of her upper and
middle classes. All will agree with us in. designating the well-
known" Post Office Directory" as amost useful book, if not an actual
necessary to tile man of business. We must, however, go further.
and speak of it as one as full of instruction as of information,
and more profitable for useful consideration than many a book filled
from cover to cover with statistics of men and things. In its
mass of type we have London laid out before us, in the social ref
lations of her people, as clearly as the best panorama has ever
depicted the brick and stone of her outward garb. She is here,
rithrP subordinates
gLondon, represented by the classes who form the
°Pulation, who not only consume, but by them-
selvescreate the wealth of which she boasts
considerbl:oefht'hee the various divisions of our higher and middle classes
living,L e strengthus
a d tai
as they are mapped out before us. Within her boundaries, as the
mart of commerce, as well as the seat of Royalty and Government—
the emporium of trade, as well as the centre of professional exertion
are gathered in perfect masses. When we speak of these
boundaries and talent—officials, courtiers, merchants, professionals, and trades-
men,
we speak not of the narrow closely-packed city, within
its ancient line of walls, whence the great aggregate of the metro-
polis takes its name, but of that aggregate of life and life's abodes
that forms the practical metropolis. We Speak of a city of upwards
of seven thousand streets, and ntore than one hundred and fifteen
thousand houses, inhabited by the upper and middle classes. We
speak of a city in which more than two thousand different trades
are carried on, where commerce musters upwards of seventy-six
thousand followers—where thirty-thousand officials are d • ally at
work—and where upwards of sixteen hundred barristers hope for
business, with the encouraging knowledge that were all the metro-
politan attornies there among them, there would be just a brace for
each member of tile other branch of the profession. For five miles
t sparkle.hei r
u s e f
u:
from north to south, for nearly eight from east to west, this city
extends, with little more space uncovered by houses than suffices
for the daily traffic of its masses, and some half-dozen tiny lungs for
their weekly respiration. When we bear in mind that these num-
bers refer only to the upper and middle classes of cur metropolitan
masses of our working popu-
lation we shall not be surprised at the numbers of masters whom we
find arranged under each-separate head of those divisions of science
or art into which we must now sub-divide London. Indeed, their
numbers, more especially when due regard is paid to the numbers of
the sections by which the necessaries of life are furnished, form tile
fill swarming
glie complement of its myriads.
best evidence
wth ofgo theto
Large as is the population accounted for among the
list of " respectables," It sinks into insignificance when
compared with that living swarm for which the pur-
veyors of food in London buy and sell, Our capitalists require
with the comforting and consoling
500 architects and 800 builders to devise and build houses for them,
and druggists muster 200 more. Our
and spoil streets ; as well as an equal number of artists to paint
their forms and faces. Our delicate eaters rejoice in the pre-
sence leod fg e 480
that p
theastr
chemistsy- pastry-cooks; ks ;
lovers of smoke fear no tobacco famine whilst 800 shops remain
the delicate coverings on which the
louurxumrieesabto;naescemssaarnyiesb,afrkoemrs
open for the sale of the noxious weed. Our ladies have 800 linen-
drapers' shops at their command—good, bad, and indifferent ; be-
sides 240 haberdashers, and upwards of 300 hosiers and glovers
For their brighter ornaments other 300 jewellers labour, whilst
opnearlyfrarmaster
at
sot
esi
rt, itOrpOal
ydnettri
11:1
ei
is
sfeaermqs
equally
oayr 1 nl
ly
unbounded. More than fifteen hundred
butchers keep shops for our repasts, aided by a thousand green-
grocers, to supply vegetables ; two thousand four hundred other
with that mixture called London bread ;
the adornment of the body and the gratification of the tastes, to its
necessary support anal the coveriagethat nature demands, the supply
jgrewocelersaraeddto
Waite supply of malt at a moment's
t whilst hard upon two thousand publicans, aided by half a thousand
i notice. Two thousand six liuudred professors of tailoring await
retailers, will send in the recl
fewonedtiumrnenftrsotmo

LA W LIFE ASSURANCE OFFICE,
Fleet-street, London, Dec 20, 1850.
Notice is hereby given, that a GENERAL MEETING of the Proprie-
tors of the Law Life Assurance Society will be held at the Society's
Office, Fleet-street, London, on SATURDAY, the Ist day of February
next, at Ilalbpast Eleven .'clock in the Forenoon, pursuant to the
provisions of the Society's Deed of Settlement, for the purpose of re-
ceiving the Auditors' Annual Report of the Accounts of the Society
up to the 31st December, 1850; to Elect a Trustee in the room of
the Right Hon. Lord Denman, who has disqualified; to Elect Two
Directors in tke room of the lion. Charles Evan Law,
.Q.C., M.P.,
and Richard Preston, Esq., Q.C., both de •eased ; and for general
purposes. The Directors to be chosen in the room of the Hon.
Charles Ewan Law, and Richard Preston, Esq., will remain in office
until 24th June, 1854.

By order of the Directors,
WILLIAM SAMUEL DOWNES, Actuary.
Business willcommenca at Twelve o'clock precisely.