Baedeker says that London is growing bigger by the day, and that its ten thousand streets contain nearly four hundred thousand houses, including ‘796 boarding houses, 330 restaurants, 883 cafés, and 398 hotels’. Furthermore, ‘The census of 1861 listed 25,000 tailors, 45,000 dressmakers, and 180,000 domestic servants of both sexes.’
To light the city at night, ‘360,000 gas-lights fringe the streets, while to warm its people and to supply its factories, a fleet of a thousand sail is employed in bringing annually 3,000,000 tons of coal, exclusive of what is brought by rail. The smoke from this immense quantity of coal has often been traced as far as Reading, 32 miles distant.’
Murray tells us that the streets of the Metropolis would, if put together, ‘extend 3000 miles in length. The main thoroughfares are traversed by 1200 omnibuses, and 3500 cabs (besides private carriages and carts), employing 40,000 horses.’ The thought here occurs that if each horse deposited on the street five pounds of dung on average, the resulting hundred or so tons of overspread must have created an abominable stench, though not perhaps as piercing as that which comes from traffic today.
All books agree that the traveller could not fail to be astonished at the complicated enormity of London — the first city of the world in population and extent wherein, says Baedeker, ‘everything seems rare and even unique. Nevertheless familiarity will exercise its influence, and the stranger will soon get so used to its peculiarities that they will cease to astonish.’
We are told to remember that: ‘The English are attached with much tenacious partiality to their institutions that have been passed down to them by their ancestors; and it is true to say that Great Britain is indebted in some way to these institutions for a good part of its present grandeur.’
In the London Postal District there were eleven deliveries of letters daily, and those letters put into the box before six at night were delivered the same evening. Baedeker tells of the many marvels to be seen, but says also: ‘The numerous churches in London, with the exception of the most important, are mentioned only in passing, the majority are not worth mentioning: a single glance which the foreigner casts on one or another of these temples will be enough to prove that they are absolutely devoid of interest from the artistic point of view, and that they merit only the attention of the theologian (of whom there are many from the numerous sects which exist in London).’
Special warning is given about the strict observation of the Sabbath. Hippolyte Taine’s first Sunday in London was probably the unhappiest day in his life, since he tells us that he was prepared to ‘commit suicide after an hour’s walk past the closed shops. Everything is gloomy and sooty. Somerset House is a frightful thing, Nelson is hideous, like a rat impaled on the top of a pole’, and so forth. He quotes a fellow-countryman’s words to the effect that: ‘Here religion spoils one day out of seven, and destroys the seventh part of possible happiness.’
All shops are closed but ‘it is better to go out into the country on that day, where you may satisfy your appetite at any hour, and rest from the noise which you have had to put up with all week. You may also thus at the same time see how the middle and lower classes of English society, who make long excursions in the environs of London with all the family, including small children, lie on the grass, unwrap all sorts of toys, singing and enjoying themselves, and then going home late on the omnibus. Hampton Court is the only establishment open on Sunday: one must therefore take care to visit it in the week.’
The traveller is liable to be confused in the matter of money and coinage, for he will have to deal with such arcane rarities as guineas, pounds, sovereigns, half-sovereigns, crowns, half-crowns, florins, shillings, sixpences, fourpences, pennies, halfpennies and farthings. Possibilities for imposition must have been boundless.
Regarding public conveniences, there are: ‘Closets for ladies in all the railway stations (the Ladies’ waiting room) and at all the Pastry-cooks; then in the main stores. For men, at the stations, in the dining rooms and at public houses. If you are in doubt the best plan is to ask a policeman: “Will you tell me, please, where is the nearest place of convenience?”’
A list of the places to see followed by meticulous descriptions in the Guide Joanne include the Prison de Newgate, Hospice de Chelsea, Musée Britannique, Galérie Nationale, Musée de South-Kensington, Galérie National des Portraits, Pare de Saint-James, Jardins de Kensington, Pare de Battersea, École de Westminster, Cathédrale de Saint-Paul, Abbaye de Westminster, Le Temple, Les docks, Banque d’Angleterre, and the Tour de Londres. In the environs were such attractions as the Palais de Cristal and the Jardins de Kew. Baedeker suggests three weeks in which to see everything, but adds that much more time could profitably be spent.
The outer environs were not without interest: a steamboat from Charing Cross would take you to Woolwich, where English subjects could visit the arsenal and citadel, accompanied by an officer of the garrison, while foreigners had to obtain a letter of introduction from their ambassador. Later in the nineteenth century a service of steamers on the Thames ran as far as Oxford, daily in the summer — though not on Sundays.
The map in Baedeker showed England as already covered by a dense network of railways, so there was no difficulty in going to all the main towns, while those off the beaten track could be reached by coach. Brighton was an hour and twenty-five minutes away, though the Guide Joanne is somewhat contemptuous of Le Pavilion: ‘… un édifice du style le plus ridicule et le plus étrange: une pagode indienne ou javanaise sous un ciel moins beau que celui de l’Inde ou de Java.’ Baedeker, who knocks five minutes off the journey time, says that the Pavilion complex is a ‘grand et disgracieux édifice en style oriental …’
County and regional guidebooks in English gave no information on how foreigners should behave, and the only translated book which did so will be examined later. A curious book entitled Foreign Visitors to England, 1889, deals mostly with travellers’ impressions from a somewhat earlier age. According to Misson (1688): ‘The inhabitants of this excellent country are tall, handsome, well made, fair, active, robust, courageous, thoughtful, devout, lovers of the liberal arts, and as capable of the sciences as any people in the world.’
On the other hand, a certain Dr Gemelli-Careri (1686), perhaps knowing something of the Englishman’s opinion of his countrymen, says: ‘The commonalty are rude, cruel, addicted to thieving and robbing, faithless, headstrong, inclined to strife and mutiny, gluttonous, and superstitiously addicted to the predictions of foolish astrologers; in short, of a very extravagant temper, delighting in the noise of guns, drums, and bells, as if it were some sweet harmony.’
Returning to the nineteenth century, an American, Professor Poppin (1867), in a study of English character, says: ‘If I could chastise my own intemperate nationality, and not let it stick out offensively, I soon made friends with Englishmen who, in the end, would volunteer more in reference to their own failings than I should ever have thought of producing them to. Mutual pride prevents Englishmen and Americans from seeing each other’s good traits and positive resemblances. And all Englishmen are not disagreeable, neither are all Americans insufferable.’