public market,
as it exists in most Continental cities and in America.

An article in the _Quarterly Review_, in Dickens' day,--and it may be
inferred things have only changed to a degree since that
time,--illustrated, in a whimsical way, the vastness of the supply
system. The following is described as the supply of meat, poultry, bread,
and beer, for one year: 72 miles of oxen, 10 abreast; 120 miles of sheep,
do.; 7 miles of calves, do.; 9 miles of pigs, do.; 50 acres of poultry,
close together; 20 miles of hares and rabbits, 100 abreast; a pyramid of
loaves of bread, 600 feet square, and thrice the height of St. Paul's;
1,000 columns of hogsheads of beer, each 1 mile high. In mere bulk this
perhaps does not convey the impression of large figures, but it is
certainly very expressive to imagine, for instance, that one has to eat
his way through 72 miles of oxen.

The _water_ used in the metropolis was chiefly supplied by the Thames, and
by an artificial channel called the New River, which entered on the north
side of the metropolis. The water is naturally good and soft. The spots at
which it is raised from the Thames used to be within the bounds of the
metropolis, at no great distance from the mouths of common sewers; but it
is now obtained from parts of the river much higher up, and undergoes a
very extensive filtration, with which eight companies are concerned. The
returns of the registrar-general showed that the average daily supply of
water for all purposes to the London population, during August, 1870, was
127,649,728 gallons, of which it is estimated the supply for domestic
purposes amounted to about 90,000,000 gallons. The total number of
houses fed was 512,540. The metropolis draws its _coal_ supplies
principally from the neighbourhood of Newcastle, but largely also from
certain inland counties, the import from the latter being by railway.
Newcastle coal is preferred. It arrives in vessels devoted exclusively to
the trade; and so many and so excessive are the duties and profits
affecting the article, that a ton of coal, which can be purchased at
Newcastle for 6_s._ or 7_s._, costs, to a consumer in London, from 28_s._
to 33_s._ The quantity of coal brought to London annually much exceeds
6,000,000 tons, of which considerably more than 2,000,000 come by railway.

[Illustration: SMITHFIELD MARKET.]

As for the markets themselves, "Billingsgate," the great _depot_ for the
distribution of fish, is described i