es' Square,
Berkley, Belgrave, Grosvenor, Manchester, Devonshire, and many more
rectangles which are still the possession of the exclusives and
pseudo-fashionables. Their histories and their goings-on are lengthy
chronicles, and are not within the purpose of this book, hence may be
dismissed with mere mention.

The flow of the Thames from west to east through the metropolis has given
a general direction to the lines of street; the principal thoroughfares
being, in some measure, parallel to the river, with the inferior, or at
least shorter, streets branching from them. Intersecting the town
lengthwise, or from east to west, are two great leading thoroughfares at a
short distance from each other, but gradually diverging at their western
extremity. One of these routes begins in the eastern environs, near
Blackwall, and extends along Whitechapel, Leadenhall Street, Cornhill, the
Poultry, Cheapside, Newgate Street, Holborn, and Oxford Street. The other
may be considered as starting at London Bridge, and passing up King
William Street into Cheapside, at the western end of which it makes a bend
round St. Paul's Churchyard; thence proceeds down Ludgate Hill, along
Fleet Street and the Strand to Charing Cross, where it sends a branch off
to the left to Whitehall, and another diagonally to the right, up Cockspur
Street; this leads forward into Pall Mall, and sends an offshoot up
Waterloo Place into Piccadilly, which proceeds westward to Hyde Park
Corner. These are the two main lines of the metropolis.

Of recent years two important new thoroughfares have been made, viz., New
Cannon Street, extending from London Bridge to St. Paul's Churchyard, and
Queen Victoria Street, which, leaving the Mansion House, crosses Cannon
Street about its centre, and extends to Blackfriars Bridge. The third main
route begins at the Bank, and passes through the City Road and the New
Road to Paddington and Westbourne. The New Road here mentioned has been
renamed in three sections,--Pentonville Road, from Islington to King's
Cross; Euston Road, from King's Cross to Regent's Park; and Marylebone
Road, from Regent's Park to Paddington. The main cross-branches in the
metropolis are Farringdon Street, leading from Blackfriars Bridge to
Holborn, and thence to King's Cross; the Haymarket, leading from Cockspur
Street; and Regent Street, running northwesterly in the direction of
Regent's Park. Others from the north of Holborn are Tottenham Court Road,
paralle