er, for
they include different districts at different times. In 1821, of the
eighteen villages or hamlets named above, only five were included in
the 'metropolis;' and in 1831, there were two additional. The
metropolitan population in 1841, in comparison with that of 1831,
differs by no less than 200,000 on this mere question of nomenclature
alone, independent of real increase on other grounds. The poor-law
grouping differs again from that of the Registrar-General; the
metropolis, or the 'London division,' does not include so many of the
marginal parishes as the Registrar's system. Again, the Post-office
arrangement is independent of all the others; for it is based upon
taking St Paul's as a centre, and drawing circles around this at a
definite number of miles' radius; and the metropolis is thus made
expansible on geometrical principles. Then the parliamentary limit is
_sui generis_; for the metropolis here comprises the City of London,
the city of Westminster, the borough of Southwark, and the five modern
boroughs of Marylebone, Finsbury, Tower Hamlets, Greenwich, and
Lambeth--a very capricious limit, truly; for while it includes the far
east at Woolwich, it excludes Pimlico, Brompton, and a vast adjoining
area. Lastly, to give one more mesh to this net, we find the police
metropolis to be the most grasping of all: by the original act of
1829, the metropolis is made to fill a circle twenty-four miles in
diameter, having Charing Cross in its centre; while in 1840, this
circle was coolly stretched to a diameter of thirty miles.

When a reader, therefore, is told of the vast increase of population
in London, let him sober down his astonishment until he knows which
(among half-a-dozen different Londons) is the one alluded to. As 'our
own country' may be taken to mean England only, or England and Wales,
or Great Britain, or the United Kingdom, or the British Empire, in
five different degrees of largeness, so may 'our metropolis' have at
least as many significations. Tables of metropolitan population have
been issued in the following form:--1750, 676,250; 1801, 900,000;
1811, 1,050,000; 1821, 1,274,800; 1831, 1,471,941; 1841, 1,873,676;
1851, about 2,250,000. But this table is subject to the correction
above hinted at. Nearly a century ago, Maitland said: 'This ancient
city has engulfed one city, one borough, and forty-three villages.' A
formidable addition has since been made to this 'engulfed' family. So
enigmatical is th