e from
the capricious tragedies of war. Nineveh appears to have been a group
of cities, united by a common government; cities of gardens and parks,
so that the country flowed into the streets; cities in which the great
temples, and palaces, and public buildings were not confined to any one
quarter, but were scattered through the entire area of the city, giving
an equal dignity to its every part. Let us apply the analogy to
London. Let us suppose a reconstructed London, devised upon the broad
principle of ample space and air according to population; of
congregated and contiguous cities under a common government; of public
buildings of utility and beauty equally distributed; and it is easy to
imagine a London that should combine all the charm of the country with
the advantages of the metropolis. The splendid streets, which are the
main arteries of traffic, would remain, but the squalid tenements and
alleys which are packed away behind them would disappear. A long chain
of parks and gardens would unite the West and East, taking the place of
a host of rotten rabbit-warrens, which are a disgrace to any civilised
community. There would be no quarter of the town relinquished to the
absolutely poor; Poplar would have its palaces of wealthy merchants as
well as Kensington, St. Albans on the north, Reigate on the south,
would mark the limits of the city, and all the intervening space would
be filled with thriving colonies of Londoners, living in well-built
houses with ample gardens. Manufactories would be distributed as well
as mansions. The various trades would not be huddled together in
narrow inconvenient corners of the metropolis; the factory, removed a
dozen miles from Charing Cross, would take its workers with it, and
become the nucleus of a new township. The artisan would thus work
within sight of his house, and that entire dislocation of home-life,
involved by present conditions of labour, would disappear. And each of
these townships would have its baths, libraries, and technical schools,
not dependent on local enterprise or generosity, but administered by a
central body, composed of men of wide views and experience, who should
deserve the great title of the City Fathers; and each would be saved
from the narrow spirit of suburbanism by the proud sense of its
corporate unity with London.

Such a London no doubt bears the aspect of a futile dream; yet it is
worth while pointing out that in a dim and feeble way thi