MARVELS OF LONDON LIFE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13844, 2 September 1908, Page 9

MARVELS OF LONDON LIFE.

London' uses 211,323,602 gallons of water a day. Londoners have 54, theatres and 44 music-halls. There are 965,863 boqks in the public J libraries. One person out of every 2000 Londoners | is homeless. j Over 50,000 marriages take place in London every year. The gross amount insured against fire is £1,010,351,455. Street accidents were responsible for 306 deaths last year. One Londoner dies every seven minutes throughout the year. There are over 100,000 paupers in receipt- of outdoor relief ,in London. There are 24,282 lunatics chargeable to the County of London unions. Thirty-nine deaths from starvation were recorded in the courts "in 1903., Nearly a quarter of- a million is spent yearly on, the London Fire Brigade. One hundred and forty-three Jews have made their homes in the metropolis. A permanent outdoor staff of 899 men r is employed in parks and open spaces. London has 103 playing grounds; acreage, 4917£; cost of. maintenance, £126,147. Elementary schools number 973, and the average tendance of scholars is 6481578. It is estimated that' London contains 991 habitual criminals, of whom 180 are females. ' . " During 1906 two hundred and twelve people were killed by vehicles on the London streets. - ' The Metropolitan police. force consists. of 16,517' officers. and is maintained at a cost of £2,467,973. . < Returns of the Railway Clearing House, show that 1000 parcels a day are lost on the railways of the United Kingdom. The coach in which the Lord Mayor of London rides on State occasions has-been in use since, the year 1757. - One hundred and seven newspaper have their offices in : Fleet-street—metropolitan, provincial, colonial, foreign, European, • American, and Asiatic. Fifteen thousand eight hundred and forty-seven police constables are required to protect London, and for this protection the citizens pay £1,300,000 a year. * - Nearly half of all the foreigners in Great Britain : reside in London. ■ There are 22,000 in Scotland, 11,000 in Manchester, 9000 in Liverpool, and 8000 'in** I Leeds. . Drury Lane Theatre is, the Largest in ' London, with accommodation for 2516, | and a _ ratable value of £5500. The Criterion is the smallest with accommodation ! for 575, and a ratable value of £7917. : The largest cab rank in the world is situated in London, viz., at Waterloo Station, the terminus of the London and South Western Railway. It is a quarter of a mile' in length. More than 1000 cabs are called in the course of twenty-four hours. An enormous mass of water is used for supressing fires in London. Last year it amounted to 29,000,000 gallons, or, expressed in weight, 129,465 tons. Of this huge quantity about one-sixth was taken from rivers arid canals," and the rest- from the street mains. London has 1000 ships and 9000. sailors in its port every day. It has upwards of 75,000 persons annually taken into custody by the police, 27,000 persons living' in its common lodging-houses, 25,000 persons annually arrested as drunk and disorderly, and one-third of.the crime of the country is committed within its radius. In 1702 the Daily Courant was sold by one Edward Mallet at the King's Arms Tavern, Fleet Bridge; the Morning Post was started in 1772, the Times about fifteen years later, the Morning Advertiser in 1794, the Evening Standard in 1827, Punch in 1841, Lloyd's in 1842, the Daily News in 1846, and the Daily Telegraph in 1855.