The Sun.
London, England, 1851-12-04 00:00:00

LITERARY GAZETTE, OCTOBER 18, 1851.

One of the first symptoms of the dueling year is presented in the
publication of the fifty-third edition of the " Post Office London Di-
rectory." Mr. Kelly is the first In the field, with his very neat and
ponderous volume, comprising upwards of two thousand very
closely•priated pages ; and his machinery is so well organised, that
he is enabled, with astonishing facilty, to correct every department
of it to within a few days of its publication. What a model for Mr.
Panizzi, for the publication of a printed catalogue of the books in
the British Museum, is the construction of this eminently useful
volume."

BRITANNIA, OCTOBER 18, 1851.
LONDON AS IT IS.

London is a wide labyrinth, in which those who are uninitiated in
its topographical intricacies must, without the aid of guide or clue,
become hopelessly bewildered. Every years adds thousands and tens
of thousands to the enormous amount of its population. Squares,
streets, and terraces, which would elsewhere constitute flourishing
cities, are periodically annexed to its already unequally extent of
buildings, and it is impossible to calculate the breadth of area which
its encroaching wings threaten eventually to overshadow with their
vastness. If its ratio of increase in respect of extent, during the
ensuing century, shall equal what it was in the last, the surface of
the county in which it stands will be too circumscribed to contain its
limits. Its inhabitants, who in the reign of Queen Anne numbered
only three hundred thousand, have increased by the last census to
nearly two millions and a half—a population equal to that of the
whole of Scotland ; and when we reflect that these teeming num-
bers are all domiciled, clothed, and fed, in this human hive, the
sumptuary arrangements necessary for the purpose seem almost in-
comprehensible to the human mind. Yet such is the extraordinary
elasticity of our external and internal resources, that the supply
has always kept pace with the demand, and the daily wants of the
two millions and a half of human beings who are sheltered and fed
in our capital, are supplied with an ease and a regularity unknown
In the days when London contained but a tenth part of its present
population. A surrey of the number of the "Yost Office London
Directory" for the year 1851, which has just been publishe 1, will
give somo notion of the difficulty which the numerous foreigners
and strangers in London, who have lately been sojourning amongst
us, would have experienced in tracing amongst these thousands
streets, and almost countless thousands of inhabitants, the desig-
nation and abodes of their friends and entertainers, but for the
timely aid of some such accurate and comprehensive record. The
mind can scarcely realise to itself a position of greater perplexity
and difficulty, than that of.a stranger to our land and our language,
launched for the first time, without guinance of any kind, in the
bewildering mazes of our metropolitan streets. Oar English no-
menclature sounds so strangely to continental ears, that, without an
interpreter, an Italian, or a Spaniard, in confabulation with a cab-
man or omnibus conductor, would have as much chance of mutual
intelligence, as with the denizen of another planet. To such, then,
the study of a faithful record of all that mighty London, in its
multitudinous divisions and snbdivisions, contains, will be of incal-
culable advantage. That which seems, when viewed en masse, to be
of a complexity utterly inextricable, through the ingenious arrange-
ments of our Court: Guides and London Directories, among which
Kelly's is the oldest and the best, has been made easy of comprehen-
sion to all who can read the Roman character. The foreigner, with
this Directory in his hand, while he contemplates with wonder both
the size of the volume and the amount of information it contains,
will admire the judicious mode of compilation, by the assistance of
which he is enabled to thread his way through the labyrinth of
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The Smaller Edition of the Work, and which includes Map of
London, comprises, amongst other information—Official Directory—
Commercial Directory--Court Directory—Parliamentary Directory
n—LesbetalhaDthirectory—Banking Directory, &c., &c., Price 155., may
Kelly and Co., " Post Office Directory Offices," 19 and 20, Old
Boswell-court, Temple-bar, Loudon; and all Booksellers.

LAURENT'S CASINO.
ARGYLL ROOMS, Great Windmill-street,
St. James's, is OPEN every Evening for the Winter Season.
Laurent's well-known and celebrated Band, principal Cornet-I-
Piston, M. Boulcourt.
During the recess the Booms have been re-decorated, and many
Improvements made, under the sole direction of Mr. G. F. Bryer.
Doors open at Half-past Eight. to commence at Nine o'clock.
Admission—ONE SHILLING.