The Sun.
London, England, 1859-12-19 00:00:00

OVERGROWN LONDON.

The growth of London is the astonishment of
statists, and the pride of its inhabitants. It has no
boundaries, its expansiveness is without limit, we
can neither say where it begins nor where it ends.
Its increase is not in houses or hundreds of the
population, but it swallows up whole towns and en-
larges the number of its people in a geometric
ratio. What was green country when our grand-
fathers were boys, is now as completely muralised
as London-wall ; what was country when our
fathers were boys, is now only a continuation of the
stereotype streets and shops, which makes the ra-
dius longer but not different ; and the quiet that
once prevailed is given up to the perpetual rush of
of threepenny omnibuses. What was country when
we were boys, is gone, gone, even to the last land
mark, and it would aced an infinitesimal division of
the seconds of latitude and longitude to
determine where, but a few years since, was the
site of a windmill or a cowbarn, or a pound or a
lock-up. The bits of sooty meadow our children
make their way to, and in their happy ignorance
call " fields," will be swallowed up in the mass be-
fore they are married ; all built on and inhabited
before any of them can count half-a-dozgn in family;
and away farther and farther will travel, not the
" the thin red line topped with steel," but the
brown belt topped with ehimney-pots. It is ver3r
objectionable, but we cannot help it. We may de-
plore the loss of a row of elms here, and chesnuts
there, grow romantic over mossy gate-posts, and
prospects that show a bit of green open •, but the
mossy gate-post is already doomed, as the site of
the new tavern, that is to supply with potables the
now town, which will be not a new limb or mem-
ber, but a mere toe-nail of the plethoric London,
which leas determined to invade the prospect in its
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houses settle down in blocks as they can find room,
according to the price of land, the degree of local
gentility, and the proximity of roads to brings the
tenants home to dinner. Jack the Giant Killer
knew where he was going in his seven-league boots,
but London wears forty-league boots, and stalks
abroad with fin intention of going anywhere, and
a determination not to go any where in
particular. The creature called an amaba delights
the naturalists by thrusting out au extempore
leg or arm wherever it wants one, and very often,
so far as we know, where it does not want one,
and for the sake of stretching itself ; but the amoeba
can tuck all its legs and arms in again as completely
as if they had never been thrust out ; but when
once London has a new limb there it remains in
rigid permanency ; it may extemporise, but cannot
absorb its extensions. If it was a " great wen "in
Cobbett's day, what is it now, with a population
equal to a tenth of the united qucendom, and an
appetite equal to the consumption of the produce of
a county every day ?—rity Press.

Count de Montalembert appeared yesterday be-
fore the examining magistrate relative to the incriminated
article lately written by him.