About the author

Theodor Fontane, 1819 – 1898, journalist, novelist and poet,

was arguably the most important German writer of the 19th C.

realist movement. He is best known for his novels, such as Effi

Briest, which has been favourably compared with Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary. In London in the 1850s he wrote

articles on English life and mores for publication in the German

press. They were later collected and published under the title

Ein Sommer in London, on which this translation is largely

based.

About the translator

John Lynch taught himself Danish and German, and later

obtained the degree of BA in these languages at the University

of Newcastle. He has taught English in Danish and German

schools and has also worked in Sweden and Iceland. After

studying at the University of East Anglia, he was awarded the

degree of MA in Scandinavian Studies. He holds a Postgraduate

Diploma in Librarianship and his varied career included a spell

as a college tutor librarian in Banbury. In addition to the present

work, John has also translated works from Danish, including

The Fantasists, a novel by Hans Egede Schack, published by

Austin Macauley in 2013.

Copyright © John Lynch

The right of John Lynch to be identified as translator of this work

has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of

the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any

means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or

otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this

publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims

for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British

Library.

ISBN 978 184963 331 4

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2014)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd.

25 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5LB

Printed and bound in Great Britain

Acknowledgements

The translator wishes to thank David Kaye for proof-reading

and preparing the text for publication.

Contents

Introduction 11 LANDFALL 19

From Gravesend to London 20 THE CITY AT LARGE 23

London 24 Telltale Figures 27 From Hyde Park to London Bridge 30

THE STREET SCENE 34 London Street Noise and its Consequences 35 The Shadwell Theatres 41 Spring in St. Giles 45 The General Post Office 47 London Bridge 50

THE SIGHTS 53 Public Monuments 54 Streets, Houses, Bridges and Palaces 60 A Wander Through the Empty Crystal Palace 66

MAKING MONEY 68 The Golden Calf 69 The Music Makers 76 Manufactured Art 81 Tavistock Square and the Pavement Artist 84 The Dock Vaults 87

POLITICS AND PATRIOTISM 90 The Middlesex Election 91 ‘Not a Drum Was Heard’ 97 Preparations for the Peace Celebrations 100 After the Celebrations 103

HOSPITALITY 106 The Foreigner in London 107 The Hospitable English House 112 Miss Jane 118

GERMANY IN LONDON 122 27 Long Acre 123 The Anglicised German 129

EXCURSIONS 134 Richmond 135 Greenwich/Blackwall/Woolwich/ 139 Windsor 139

CHRISTMAS 145 Christmas Tree and Holly 146 The Poor Man’s Christmas Tree 148 Little Games in London 149

Sources 152 Notes 155

I n t r o d u c t i o n

Theodor Fontane ranks as the early master of modern German

Realism, and his late nineteenth-century novels are currently

enjoying a revival. Much of his early training as an observer of

the social scene and the big city was acquired, curiously enough,

as a journalist in London, employed by the Prussian state. The

material in this collection consists of short articles describing

London for the people back home.

Fontane was born in 1819 at Neuruppin, Brandenburg (the

core province of Prussia), to parents of French Huguenot

extraction; initially he took up his father’s occupation as an

apothecary. However, from an early age his inclinations were

towards authorship, though necessity compelled him to earn his

bread in chemists’ shops. His first literary excursions were in

poetry, particularly the ballad, and he remained an accomplished

exponent of the genre all his life. Whilst still a chemist in Berlin

he achieved early recognition within Der Tunnel über der Spree

(The tunnel over the Spree: a jocular allusion to the tunnel under

the Thames), a talented literary group which counted P. Heyse,

Theodor Storm and Heinrich Seidel amongst its members and

hosted people like Gottfried Keller; this connection proved an

important stimulant and provided influential contacts in literary

and social circles.

During the 1840s and 1850s he moved progressively into

the field of writing and spent three periods in Britain. His

creative work offered a commentary on things around him,

particularly in London, and many articles contributed to the

German Press were later collected together and published in

book form. Exceptionally, his writings on Scotland were

conceived as a unity, appearing in 1860 as an account of his

travels Jenseits des Tweed (Across the Tweed). This eulogy to

Scotland came out shortly after his final departure from Britain;

a charming blend of local history, social commentary and

personal travel narrative, it provided the ideal apprenticeship for

his next substantial production, the monumental study of his

homeland Brandenburg, which, he felt, had some mystical

affinity with Scotland. The first two volumes of Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg (Journeys in the Mark of

Brandenburg) were published in 1863; three more were to

follow, the last in 1889.

There is a sort of inexorable development and relationship

between experience and artistic progression in Fontane. Just as

the Scottish work led to Wanderungen, so too, did the latter

presage his first novel Vor dem Storm (Before the storm), 1878,

an historic epic in the Scott tradition depicting Prussia’s War of

Liberation against Napoleon. In the interim Fontane’s

journalistic activities had continued. Three particular events,

doubtless, had made their contribution to that novel, namely, the

campaigns launched by Prussia against Denmark (1864),

Austria (1866) and France (1870), which Fontane followed as

an official war-correspondent, whilst he was engaged in the

writing process. A number of other historical works of fiction

followed Vor dem Storm, before he finally got to grips with two

decades of social realism. The count would be incomplete if no

mention was made of his twenty years as a dramatic critic and

significant autobiographical works.

Fontane’s international reputation, however, is based upon a

series of novels depicting the social scene in nineteenth-century

Prussia as the old conservatism comes to terms with economic

change. The role of women in society is examined in a number

of these works. His characters are handled compassionately,

though with gentle irony, and his forte is the dialogue, through

which the personalities are revealed and the narrative proceeds.

This technique, quite new to German narrative art, undoubtedly

owed much to his experience of drama. Best known to the

English reader is Effi Briest (1895) which has been the subject

of a Fassbinder film; others, in chronological sequence, are:

L’Adultera (1882), Cécile (1887), Irrrungen, Wirrungen (1888),

Stine (1890), Frau Jenny Treibel (1892), and Die Poggenpuhls (1896). The final completed novel, Der Stechlin, published in

the year of his death, 1898, is regarded by many Germans as his

masterpiece and a fitting epitaph to his work. Introducing it to

an editor, Fontane observes: ‘…on the one hand an old-

fashioned estate in the Mark of Brandenburg, on the other an à

la mode upper-class house (Berlin), various people meet there

and talk through God and the world. Nothing but conversation,

dialogue, in which the characters play out the story, together and

in themselves. Not only do I consider this to be the proper, but

also the necessary, way to write a contemporary novel.’

Fontane’s authorship rests substantially on the foundation of

journalistic experience; this in turn is based in large part on his

initiation in Britain, a country which held a special attraction for

him, even as a child. Neuruppin seemed to have been rather

prosaic; the family’s five year sojourn in Swinemunde, a Baltic

seaport, where there was contact with British seafolk and

merchants, amongst others, opened his eyes to the great wide

world outside, a world in which Britain then played a major

part. This inclination was further strengthened in later years

through readings in history and literature.

Even as a Berlin chemist’s assistant he found time, whilst

‘brewing up’ concoctions for export to Britain, to add readings

of Dickens, Marryat, Scott and others to an already extensive

knowledge of Shakespeare. His interests were not confined to

literature however; his political instincts had been aroused at

home, where he became an avid newspaper reader at an early

age. With youthful idealism he was attracted to those reformist

tendencies which made this country a focal point for the

politically aware in the Europe of that time; seen from afar,

Britain appeared as the home of the parliamentary ideal and the

champion of threatened and oppressed minorities. After the

1832 Reform Act in particular the German Press carried regular

reports on the British scene; such developments became a

favourite topic of conversation in intellectual circles and clubs.

His first personal contact with this country came quite

unexpectedly, in 1844, whilst doing a year’s voluntary military

service with the Prussian Guards in Berlin. Fontane describes

how an old friend from home turned up, entirely without notice,

offering to treat him to a trip to England:

‘“To England?” I asked flabbergasted. “To the Kingdom of

Great Britain, to the land where London is the capital city and

where Shakespeare was born? You want to go to that England?”

“If you’ve nothing against it, yes …”’ Fortunately he had

sympathetic superiors and was granted fourteen days’ leave. So

off they went. The excitement of the steamboat journey, the

sights and experiences of London are wittily portrayed in his

diary, correspondence and articles. This brief encounter only

served to encourage his idealism of ‘liberal’ Britain and his

tendency to contrast it with reactionary Prussia.

Back in Berlin he resumed his military duties; soon

afterwards he was made an N.C.O. At the end of 1845 he

became engaged and the prospect of future marital

responsibilities concentrated his mind upon a career; he studied

for professional qualifications as a chemist, achieving this in

1847.

Fontane’s political fervour peaked during 1848, the year of

revolution throughout Europe. Like many other German states,

Prussia succumbed to the general turmoil; Fontane mounted the

barricades together with friends and fellow citizens; he shared

their ultimate disappointment. Otherwise he followed his

occupation as a chemist in a half-hearted sort of way, devoting

his greatest effort to writings of one sort or another; indeed, at

one point in 1849 he gave up work and tried in time-honoured

fashion to survive in a garret as a freelance writer, though

without much success; his situation now grew desperate.

Influential friends secured for him a post in the recently created

‘Literary Bureau’ (Literarisches Kabinett) of the Prussian

Interior Ministry. On the strength of this he got married.

Predictably, the work was not to his liking; in general the

Bureau had to monitor the Press and seek to influence provincial

newspapers against the progressive and democratic tendencies.

Again, he broke loose in another unsuccessful attempt at artistic

freedom and independence; once more necessity forced him to

swallow his pride. He returned to the Bureau; a written

comment from November, 1851, strikingly reveals his

bitterness: ‘I have today sold myself to the reactionaries for

thirty pieces of silver.’

He still looked to Britain for salvation, cooking up a plan

which would enable him to return to England, partly to renew

his love-affair with this country, partly in the hope of finding

employment and the chance of settling here, thus escaping the

political situation at home. Fortune was with him; his

suggestions were accepted and he was despatched to London in

April, 1852, as a special correspondent for the Preussische

Zeitung, an organ of the Prussian Office of Public Relations

(Zentralstelle für Presseangelegenheiten), charged with

describing conditions in this country. The essentially personal

observations transmitted to his employers were collected

together two years later and published in book form under the

title Ein Sommer in London (A Summer in London).

Although Fontane never lost his affection for much in

Britain, increased familiarity with conditions awakened his

scepticism towards the contemporary materialism (‘The Golden

Calf’), and also the political system which proved on closer

inspection to be less than perfect. All in all, the experience was

a sobering one; he exploited much of the material gathered a

quarter of a century later when confronted by a similar process

of economic and industrial expansion in his own country.

After five months in London Fontane returned to Berlin

having established a reputation amongst his superiors for his

knowledge of British affairs, though his personal aspirations

remained unfulfilled. Initially he was put in charge of the

English news section of the Preussische Zeitung, but later

moved to other duties. Alongside this work he gave private

tuition, wrote ballads, and was a critic and translator. All this

took a toll on his health and he spent some time in hospital

recovering from tuberculosis.

The continuing Crimean War occasioned tension between

Prussia and Britain; the Prussian administration was steadfastly

neutral and wished to influence the Press in its favour; this

policy was being undermined by an independent German news

agency in London under the direction of a Hungarian bent on

involving Prussia in the war. In September 1865 it was decided

to send someone over, ostensibly as a London correspondent.

Fontane, known to be familiar with the British situation and

with a good knowledge of history and the English language, was

considered a suitable candidate for the post. His arrival in

London was not propitious; he had with him a treasured three-

volume copy of Vanity Fair with copious marginal notes –

Customs confiscated it as a pirated edition.

The correspondent was required to scan the English Press

for the relevant material, translate this and send it back to

Berlin. Shortage of funds made it impossible to purchase all the

newspapers; often Fontane had to operate in cafes and the like.

Not only did his artistic nature rebel, but he also felt

overworked; a letter of complaint to his chief in Berlin runs

‘…You promise the Queen’s speech. On the same evening I

have to walk or drive about three miles to get advice from my

friend Morris. The speech is made; I have to write to friend

Schweitzer, quote him, etc. The money runs out; who has to go

to the Embassy, who has to dress up in a white waistcoat, etc.,

(because Bernstorff is supposed to have returned already) – who

other than the aforesaid Fontane. He rushes over there twice in

vain; who has to make out a sort of petition to Count

Brandenburg? Me, of course. Dr. Mengel’s letters require

answers – who has to write them? Me. Before I have finished

the printer sends me a letter announcing that all the paper has

been used up, it’s an emergency. Who has to go helter-skelter to

Drury Lane to buy paper? Me. Who has to run (and at full tilt) to

the printer’s and from the printer’s to the post? Me. Who has to

read the evening papers, making extracts far into the night? Me.

And finally, after all that, who has to fill the columns …’ For

various reasons the mission’s objectives were not realised;

Fontane, though not relishing his duties, wanted to avoid recall

to Berlin; his greatest wish was to recommence his study of

English life and culture and, if possible, put his knowledge to

good use. This was the drift of correspondence in which he

argued his case with Berlin.

It was now 1856; luck was with Fontane, for on 30th March

the Treaty of Paris brought the Crimean War to an end. The

feeling in Berlin was that tension with Britain would now

gradually relax. Fontane’s duties were changed; he was brought

under the supervision of the Prussian Ambassador, with a view

to influencing the British Press, though the Public Relations

Office was to help place his articles in Prussia. The new

arrangements certainly improved his lot, but things were still not

ideal and he continued to make representation to his chief, even

requesting his release. Finally he was given the security of a

three-year contract; this ensured economic stability, so he

brought his family over and found a nice house in Camden

Town.

The presence of wife and child and improved circumstances

ensured a much better lifestyle; he was even able to travel out of

London to provincial centres. However, the highlight of the

whole period was a two-week tour of Scotland, a country which

Fontane took to his heart, and for which he felt a special

affinity.

Meanwhile, back in Prussia, Prince Wilhelm had assumed

the regency in October 1858 on account of the King’s failing

health. The Prince’s known opposition to the reactionary

policies pursued hitherto gave rise to hopes of a more liberal

administration. Friends in Berlin urged Fontane to return home

and exploit this situation. However, just as his enthusiasm for

Britain (especially its politics) had waned during the last few

years, so too had he lost much of his reformist fervour and

become more of a pragmatist. As he pointed out in a letter to a

friend, he had never been a creature of the old regime, nor was

he a particular supporter of the new one. ‘I am, quite simply,

Fontane.’ Nevertheless, he put forward proposals for the

arrangements with the British Press which would free him from

his contract and enable him to return home. Berlin accepted; he

left London in January 1859, never to return.

Fontane’s output was prolific; despite his obligations to the

Prussian state, whilst in London he managed to write numerous

articles; he also composed poetry, translated, kept an

intermittent diary and engaged in lengthy correspondence. Nor

was he unaware of the potential of this material. During 1858, in

a letter, he outlined plans for a three-volume collection on

Britain: the first volume to be entitled Bilderbuch aus England

(English picture-book) and made up ‘simply of little sketches, of

which I have written so many’; the other two volumes were to

contain ballads, translations and essays on the theatre, art, the

Press, etc. However, other correspondence suggests that he was

unclear how to proceed with this plan. Nevertheless, 1860 saw

the publication of Aus England, Studien und Briefe über

Londoner Theater, Kunst und Presse (From England, Essays

and correspondence on London theatre, Art and Press) and also

the work on Scotland Jenseits des Tweed (English translation:

Across the Tweed, by Brian Battershaw, Phoenix House,

London, 1965). It was left to his son, Friedrich Fontane, to

publish in 1938 his version of Bilderbuch aus England, made up

of his father’s writings then available but not yet published in

book form (translated as Journeys to England in Victoria’s early

days, by Dorothy Harrison, Massie Publishing Co., London,

1939)

The well-known Fontane scholar Hans-Heinrich Reuter

estimated that the author’s writings on Britain, including

correspondence, diaries, translations, etc., would amount to

about five thousand printed pages. Reuter’s compilation of this

material Wanderungen durch England und Schottland (Journeys

in England and Scotland), (Berlin, 1979/80), an impressive two-

volume work of some twelve hundred pages, goes a long way

towards realising Fontane’s own ambition. The present

translation uses texts from this title; more than half the material

belongs to the collection of articles first published in book form

in Germany as Ein Sommer in England, which has not so far

appeared in English. The arrangement is not chronological;

pieces are simply gathered under topic headings. Obscure

references are dealt with in the notes section, whilst ‘Sources’ at

the back indicates in which publication each piece first

appeared.

LANDFALL

From Gravesend to London

The English coast ahead. Yarmouth with its towers is

shimmering through the morning mist. Another tidy stretch

southwards and the mouth of the Thames lies in front. There it

is: Sheerness with its cone-buoys and markers appears. And

now our steamer seems to have sprouted wings, its paddles beat

the surging waters ever faster; rushing through that dazzling

bight, whether broad river or narrow sea one cannot tell, it

carries us past Gravesend into the River Thames proper. All

things exert their influence from afar: we can feel a

thunderstorm long before it’s upon us. Great men have their

heralds: that’s how it is with great cities too. Gravesend is such

a harbinger, it calls out to us: ‘London is coming’. Restlessly,

expectantly, our gaze ranges up the Thames. Swift as an arrow

the steamer’s keel cuts through the water, but we curse our

dawdling captain: our yearning flies more speedily than his ship

– that’s his trouble Yet already London is present all around us.

Gravesend does not lie within the bounds of London; all the

same it’s spellbound by it. Still another five miles to the old

City; we still have to pass by bustling towns; yet already we are

caught up in the hurly-burly of the giant city. Greenwich,

Woolwich and Gravesend still rate as separate towns, though

they are no longer; the fields and meadows between them and

London are simply extended Hyde Parks. From Smithfield to

Paddington, straight across the city, is a worse journey than

from London Bridge to Gravesend; Mile End is no longer the

longest street in London, the splendid River Thames is: instead

of cabs and omnibuses, hundreds of carriers and steamers use it,

Greenwich and Woolwich are stopping places, and Gravesend is

the last station.

The spell of London is – its vastness. Naples impresses by

virtue of its Bay and sky, Moscow by its gleaming cupolas,

Rome by its memories, Venice by the thrill of beauty risen from

the sea; with London the feeling of boundlessness overwhelms

us – the same feeling which grips us on our first glimpse of the

sea. The teeming abundance, the inexhaustible mass – that is the

real essence, the nature of London. This confronts you

everywhere. Gazing down from St. Paul’s or the Greenwich

Observatory over the sea of buildings, wandering through the

City streets, half borne away by the tide of humanity, you

cannot suppress the thought that every building is probably a

theatre which at this moment is pouring out its thronging

audience into the fresh air – everywhere it is the number, the

great quantity, which evokes our astonishment.

Everywhere! But nowhere so much as on that great London

highway – the Thames. I shall attempt to paint a picture of all

this hustle and bustle. Gravesend lies behind us, we can still see

the bright shimmer of its buildings, and already Woolwich, the

arsenal town, appears before our gaze. To the right and left lie

the guard-ships; menacingly they show their teeth, bright in the

sunlight the guns gleam from their hatches. We have nothing to

fear: the flag of Old England flutters from our mast; a cannon-

shot booms across the Thames but it is only in peace, and its

echo dies away there in the quiet air of Kent. Onward paddles

the steamer, past East-Indiamen which even now are setting out

to sea, out into the world with full sails and full of hope; look,

the sailors greet us and wave their hats. When they have land

under their feet again it will be on the banks of the Indus or the

Ganges. Safe voyage!

Now a hospital ship almost blocks our way. Everything

about it is battered – both itself and its occupants. It’s a three-

decker; the cannon hatches have been turned into peaceful

windows behind which the victors of Abukir and Trafalgar,

Nelson’s old guard, have their cosy berths.

But let’s leave the old ones. At this moment, young, vibrant

life passes exultantly by. A veritable flotilla of steamboats, a

peaceful host only native to the waters of the Thames, comes

gliding down the river to the accompaniment of song and music.

There’s a fair or a boating festival in Gravesend, it’s a must for

the journeyman, the clerk and the tradesman; half the city, it

seems, is fledged and wants to dance and romp in Gravesend

and simply enjoy itself to the music of bagpipes. The festive

procession is endless: I have counted up to a hundred of the

steamers speeding past (which, incidentally, have no masts and

carry only one iron smokestack), but I give up; they are simply

countless. And what a pace. Some of them try to overtake the

others as if it were a race; it’s a northern regatta. What a

splendid lagoon this Thames – what a fleeting gondola each

chugging boat. Greenwich appears ahead now, things are

stirring more and more, the river is getting more colourful; like

ants at work, hither and thither, to the left and to the right,

backwards and forwards, always in motion, it’s full of life

between the banks. So far we have not heard a word of English,

and yet the sterns and flags of the ships rushing past have

opened up a whole new vocabulary for us, we could read it like

the pages of a giant dictionary. As yet we have not set foot in

London, it still lies ahead, but already part of it is behind us – it

hurried past us on a hundred steamboats. The populations of

entire cities have fled that one city; yet the thousands it is

lacking it does not lack. What a fragment of protozoan matter is

to Ehrenberg’s microscope, so is London before the human eye.

It teems, immeasurably; they provide us with figures, but the

numbers are beyond our imagination. The rest is – sheer

amazement.

THE CITY AT LARGE

London

London has made an ineradicable impression upon me; not so

much its beauty as its splendour has caused me to marvel. It is

the model, the quintessence of a whole world. The oft-

mentioned fact that it has more night-watchmen (twelve

thousand) than the Kingdom of Saxony has soldiers, gives a

good idea of the scale of this gigantic city.

We Germans groan about ‘the high cost of living’ in

London: I will not comment on that but would simply assure

you that a pair of shoe-soles and a few pence are all that is

needed to get to know the true, the real, the incomparable

London.

The Italian opera where one pays a pound admission, the

countless churches and theatres in which one is more or less

fleeced, the much admired squares and their columns, the

majestic Thames’ bridges, none of them make London what it

is, they could all be lacking without robbing it of its grandeur.

Tamburini is just the same in Paris as in London, and Lablanche

does not sing one crochet deeper in England than in France;

Vienna and Dresden and Berlin, too, have splendid theatres,

indeed, greater ones to some extent than Drury Lane and Covent

Garden. Does Westminster Abbey put the cathedrals of

Strasbourg or Cologne into the shade? Do not Berlin’s Pleasure

Gardens and surroundings outdo the Trafalgar and Leicester

Squares? The Dresden Picture Gallery is richer and worthier

than London’s National Gallery, and even the Tunnel is more

likely to impress the reflective rather than the feeling person,

conveys more to the intellect than to the eye. No, whoever really

wants to get to grips with London will plunge, if he is bold and a

good walker, into the throng of people, or, better still, he will

climb up on to the outside of an omnibus and ride up the streets,

down the streets, from the City as far as Paddington, from

Westminster Bridge to Vauxhall, and from there to Hyde or

Regent’s Park. In Cheapside in the City there unfolds before his

gaze the humming, restless bustle of the world’s premier

commercial city. He will see the streets around him covered,

literally, with people, cabs and gigs, goods wagons and hackney

coaches; every moment he expects to see the thoroughfare

blocked or the omnibus which carries him pulverised; but no,

here, too, practice has made perfect; where nervousness would

spell danger, self-assurance triumphs. To what can I compare

this hustle and bustle? To an industrious swarm of bees flying

out in a dense cloud to seek nourishment, an indolent, doll-like

queen at their head? Shall I call this ceaselessly dispersing,

ceaselessly re-forming wave of humanity a sea, in which the

individuals merge like drops of water? Perhaps I can illustrate

this hurly-burly more vividly by comparing each street with a

narrow theatre corridor which, at the end of a performance, can

scarcely cope with the audience pouring through. Anyway, our

omnibus is still far from its destination; just at this moment it is

crossing Farringdon Street and passing out of the City into the

fashionable quarter, the West End. It rolls along on the wooden

pavings of the Strand, the first handsome West End street it has

to pass. The scene changes; the streets, broad and tidy, reveal

only now and again a lone goods-van which seems to have lost

its way; the throng slackens and people and carriages appear

more elegant. We pass Charing Cross and find ourselves now in

the territory of the nobility. Piccadilly, Regent and Oxford

Streets, it makes no difference which of the three we submit to

close scrutiny. I would not wish to be the Paris who had to

decide their beauty contest. If it were evening, I would

undoubtedly enter the lists for Oxford Street, for, longer and

straighter in the main than the other two streets, the radiant

picture of closely bunched gaslamps, intensified by a sea of light

emerging from all the shops unquestionably affords the loveliest

view. What a difference between the commercial world of the

West End and that of the City. The latter conducts a global trade

and deems it of little consequence whether the bill of exchange

is signed in gloomy badly built counting-house offices or in

chambers decked out in velvet and gold; whereas the West End

businessman is only a shopkeeper providing for the nobility in

his immediate vicinity. Her ladyship personally might one day

honour his premises with her lofty presence, which explains the

glittering splendour of the same. The plate-glass windows are

unusually large, all the woodwork is gilt; tastefully arranged, the

most expensive materials are displayed for the eye of the

passers-by. The interior walls of the shops often consist of

nothing but mirrors; illuminated as they are by twenty or more

gaslights all the luxury appears quadrupled to the wondering

spectator. The omnibus conductor shouts, ‘Hyde Park’. We are

on the corner of Oxford Street and Park Lane and alight. Let us

assume it is five o’clock in the afternoon; we proceed into the

Park ahead and sit down on a bench. Here we have the

Longchamps of the Parisian on a daily basis. Whatever today’s

fashion dictates, passes by us. Lord B’s new gig, Lady M’s chic

riding-habit, Baronet V’s dun stallion, on which three days

previously a bet won a thousand pounds – you will find them all

here; here the nobles parade before themselves and the admiring

crowd. And when the last rider has passed by and you see, in the

glare of the setting sun, London with all its spires lying before

you, and countless slender chimneys rising here and there like

minarets in a city of the Prophet, then remind yourself of all

those manifold pictures revealed to you in the course of the day.

Remember that early this morning you stepped down into the

vaults at the Docks, which deserve to be called a London under

the earth; remember that each kind of wine there constituted an

underground district, in which the piled-up casks might

represent the floors of timber buildings, in which we passed

through long, dim alleyways, lamplit like our streets at home by

night. Remember that from the Docks we went aboard a steamer

and, sailing up the Thames from the Tower, saw the crowded

boats glide by as numerous as the cabs in our streets, remember

the boldly arched bridges, under which we sped and over which

a dark wave of humanity roared unceasingly, remember then the

City throng and the fairy-tale splendour of the West End

illuminated, and admit that London is wonderful and

incomparable.

Telltale Figures

‘A change is as good as a rest.’ I made a poetical start in my last

letter, for that reason I am following up today with – figures.

‘Londres n’est pas une ville: c’est une province couverte de

maisons,’ a famous Frenchman has said, and he is right. In an

area of sixteen square miles somewhere near 300,000 houses

with a total of over two million occupants stand. These include

17,000 domestics, 24,000 tailors and 4,000 doctors and

chemists.

Of the total population 350,000 live on the south side of the

Thames in Southwark and Lambeth; London proper, which is

five times larger, lies to the north. Communication between the

two parts – not counting the Tunnel – is effected by seven

bridges whose construction cost between five and six million

pounds Sterling.

London’s soul is commerce and trade. The Bank is a

creation of this commerce and, on the other hand, its generator

too. Its assets amount to – a return from the year 1850 lies in

front of me, though, I dare say, these figures are not constant –

more than £42 million Sterling, which exceeds the Prussian

public revenues threefold. Its liabilities do not quite reach a

level of £39 million Sterling, amongst which are twenty million

banknotes.

Commerce itself provides the following figures: annually,

an average of 30,000 ships enter the Port of London amongst

which are 8,000 from foreign parts and 22,000 English coastal

vessels. Amongst the 8,000 which sustain England’s

international traffic, 5,000 in turn sail under the British flag –

the total number of foreign ships comes to only 3,000, of which

(1849) 153 are Prussian and 351 German.

The annual London Customs’ receipts amount to more than

£11 million Sterling and make up exactly half the English

Customs’ revenue in general.

The daily bread of the mind, entertainment and diversion is

supplied by newspapers and letters. Of the 84 million newspaper

sheets which are stamped each year in England, almost 50

million appear in London itself, and of the £163,000 Sterling

which advertising tax brings in, London alone pays £70,000.

The revenue from postage is enormous: it amounts to £800,000.

Material necessities furnish the following figures: in the

kitchens and fireplaces, in workshops and factories London uses

3½ million tons of coal. Consumed annually are: 240,000 heads

of cattle, 1,700,000 sheep, 28,000 calves, 38,000 pigs and an

indeterminable quantity of bacon and ham. The number of wild

and tame fowl, together with hares and rabbits (of the latter,

which are scorned by us, 680,000 are consumed), reaches a total

of 4,024,400. Apart from eggs supplied by England itself, a

further 75 million come from Germany and France. What would

John Falstaff have thought glancing over these figures? In spite

of his partiality for sack he would at least have been startled to

hear of the 170 million quarts of porter and ale which are now

drunk in London, year in, year out. That works out at ¼ quart

per person daily.

We come now to the darker side of the picture, to sickness,

crime and death. The record for crime is old (from 1838) and

defective: 220 robberies with violence (burglars and

housebreakers), 5,000 common thefts and 136 begging letter

frauds. 50,000 persons have fallen into prostitution (according

to a census from 1850), including 5,000 children under fifteen.

In the same year there were 853 outbreaks of fire. The state of

health was bleak in former times; in the Plague Year 1665 when

the population of London did not quite amount to 400,000,

nearly 69,000 died, that is to say one in six. Up to the beginning

of this century one in twenty died, year in, year out, that is 5 per

cent. Only in the last decade has this situation improved (25 in

1,000 or 2.5 per cent), even more favourable in fact than in

many other large cities, e.g. Paris where 33 in 1,000, i.e. 3.5 per

cent die. Nevertheless, every year 50,000 people (that is about

one Potsdam) are carried off to the churchyard. Although whole

townships disappear from this city it grows and grows, and its

very size explains this constant new growth. The mighty cities

of Antiquity have long since been outstripped; when will it

share their fate? Ages, ages! Only ‘Chidher, eternally young’1

will see corn growing above it or ships sailing over it.

From Hyde Park to London Bridge

It is Saturday afternoon, the sun smiles down as cheerfully as

the hazy streets will permit, but the sun’s cheerfulness does

nothing to relieve me of my earthly depression, and I resort to

my last means of uplift and diversion – an omnibus ride from

the West End to the City.

Here it comes already, my old friend the Royal Blue which

runs between Hyde Park Corner and London Bridge; as I climb

to its highest seat with the twin dexterity of a German gymnast

and a London pavement pounder, it trundles onward at almost

the same instant as it stopped to pick me up. A glance leftwards

into Hyde Park and right to the triumphal arch of the victorious

Duke. But now eyes straight ahead into the swirl of Piccadilly,

down whose paving we are so smoothly driving.

The first half of Piccadilly resembles a quayside: to the left

palaces and other buildings rise up, on the right, however, Green

Park stretches out like a sheet of water, refreshing the eye with

its lawns and the open prospect through the trees. A light breeze

wafts our way, momentarily relieving the day of its sultriness; I

become more relaxed and recall with a smile my remedy which

seems to have proved itself once more.

Further on the quay narrows to a street and loses some of its

refinement; already, however, the driver is turning into Regent

Street and slackens the reins, and downhill we go more quickly

than hitherto towards lovely Waterloo Place. In front of us

towers the York Column; Carlton House, the seat of the

Prussian Embassy, shows off its tall windows; one palace after

another extends before our gaze, but even before we have made

out with certainty the Minerva statue on one of them the

omnibus turns off to the left into the eastern offshoot of Pall

Mall and, past hotels, art shops and clubhouses, we now

approach London’s real focal point, Trafalgar Square.

Here we are: the fountains are doing their part (admittedly

only a modest one); the victor of Trafalgar looks down from his