The Sun.
London, England, 1850-12-21 00:00:00

BELL'S WEEKLY 51ESSENaKft, DECEMBER 7, 1850.
We congratulate Mr. KPlly 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 an 1 arranging the materials, or of the
variety of the subjects comprised in this Directory, is beyond our
power.. A mere enumeration of the getter 1 heads under which
these subjects are placed would fill a column 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, Mr. Kelly's volume
is indisp,

MININC4 JOURNAL, NOVEMBER 16, 1850.
The old adage, that " a great book is a great evil," is triumphantly
fal-itled by the annual publication of this imclosing velame, with its
2,000 pages, and its vast mass of practical information. All competi-
tors, at all approaching the same comprehensive stale, have lately
dropped off; so that the work, both in its dimensions and the im-
mense variety of information is affords, is now unique. It stands
alone, and is likely long to remain so in the extent of Its revurces
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, sinceunderits various
heads—" Official," "Commercial," "Trades," " Parliamentary,"
" Banking," &c.—the required fact 'nay 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 rapeet
doing vast credit to the watchful care bestowed upon
Its contents down to the minutest details. In a wcrd, 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.

LITEBARY 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," eontain under their respective
heads every item of information that can be useful, so adin:rably
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 the Nobleman and the Esquire, as it is absolutely
essonVal to the Banker, the Lawyer, the Merchant, the Manufac-
turer, and the Tradesman.

BRITANNIA, NOVEMBER la, 18;0*
MODERN BABYLON,
The advertisement sheets of a leading journal have with justice
been characterised as the miniature of the easats, the was, es, 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 piper and print that frights us
to behold. More than two thousand pages of close printing, and many
columns in each page, are requited 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 use hl book, if not an a anal
necessary to the man of business. We must, however, go farther.
and speak of it as one as full of Instruction as rf information,
and more profitable for useful consideration than many a book filled
from cover to cover with statistics of men arid things. In its
mass of type we have London laid out before us, in the social re-
lations of her people, as clearly as the best panorama has ever
depicted the brick and stone of her outward garb. She is here,
living, breathing London, represented by the classes who form the
strength of her population, who not only consume, but by them-
selves and their subordinates create the wealth of which she boasts.
Let us consider the various divisions of our higher and middle classes
as they are map, ed 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
and talent—officials, courtiers, merchants, professionals, and trades-
men, are gathered in perfect masses. When we speak of these
boundaries 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 more 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-thous tnd officials are daily 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 the other branch of the profession. For five miles
front 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 same half-dozen tiny lungs for
their weekly respiration. When we hear in mind that these num-
bers refer only to the upper and middle classes of our metropolitan
hive, 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 the
best evidence of the swarming masses of our working popu-
lation which go to fill up the complement of its myriads.
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
500 architects and 800 builders to devise and build houses for them.
and spoil streets; as well as an equal number of artists to paint
their forms and faces. Our delicate eaten rejoice in the pre-
sence of 480 pastry-cooks ; with the comforting and consoling
knowledge that the chemists and druggists muster 200 more. Our
lovers of smoke fear no tobacco famine whilst 800 shops remain
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
nearly 1,000 milliners form the delicate coverings on which the
jewels are to sparkle If we turn from luxuries to necessaries, from
the adornment of the. body and the gratification of the tastes, to its
necessary support and the coverings that nature demands, the supply
of master traders is equally 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
grocers add their useful condiments mixture m called s many bakers
pray to supply the family with that London bread ;
whilst hard upon two thousand publicans, aided by half a thousa d
retailers, will send in the requisite supply of malt at a moment's
notice. Two thousand six hundred professors of tailoring await
your orders, supported by four hundred hatters to defend from
the weather the locks or the wigs which any of-the seven hundred
professors of hair-dre-sing, let alone the poor- barbers, will gladly
dress or supply. Six hundred and odd coal merchants —real and
brass-plate—will
slightlybod
yd itsocot
lleict a
eight hundred and eighty
supplyhe
coals to boil the kettle for the tea, which
manufacturers of milk will weakest and:
theiriidp attheen tsoa composition.l. Fo r the
mighty
tuys
utalturns, frrooumthr
hundred and fifty public and national schools proffer education,
mostly free ; whilst seven hundred
e
and fifty other private acade-
mies will supply a similar article ac
the National Church one hundred and fort.crding to the price. 13Y
-nine churches
arepro-
vided for the peol'le, more than halt of which are practically hclosed
to the poor, brreason of their being private property. The rest of
the religious accommodation is divided among-
the sections and sub •
sections of Dissent, numbering one hundred and
eighty in all. Wll3s