London is the scat of a bishopric, which comprises about 320 benefices. The income of the bishop is £10,000 a year. St. Paul's is the cathedral for the diocese; it is situated at the e. end of Ludgate hill, extending to Cheapside, and was built by sir Christopher Wren (1675-1710) at a cost of £748,000. It is built in the form of a cross, is 514 ft. long, by 286 wide; the cross, which surmounts the ball over the dorne, is 356 ft. above the marble pavement below. St. Paul's contains many monuments to illustrious persons. (Plans are in progress for an extensive and costly restoration of the interior.) 14 estrmn ster abbey, also cruciform, is 530 ft. in extreme outer length, by 203 in width; the west towers are 225 ft. high. Henry VII.'s chapel, at the e. end, is a beautiful example of enriched Gothic. The abbey has no special connection with the see of London, but is intimately connected with some of the court and parliamentary ceremonials. It W BS originally a Benedictine monastery, and is said to have been founded by Sebert, king of the East Saxons (circa 616); enlarged by king Edgar and Edward the confessor; and rebuilt, nearly as we now see it, by IIenry III. and Edward I. Here the kings and queens of England have been crowned from Edward the confessor. to queen Victoria; and here many of them have been buried. The poet's corner, with its tombs and mon =lents of eminent men, is a well-known spot of the abbey. Et. SaviOr's, in Southtvark, is the third in importance of the London churches. The largest Roman Catholic church is in St. George's fields. The largest dissenting chapel is Mr. Spurgeon's Baptist taber nacle, Newington Butts. There are in London nearly 1000 places of worship, of which those belonging to the church of England are rather less than one-half; the religious denominations are about 30.
Of schools of all kinds, there are in London about 2,000, including private, parochial, ragged, church and chapel, national* British, free, grammar, and rate-payers' board schools. Many small and inefficient fiivate schools have lately been closed as a conse quence of the opening. of good public schools. The chief educational establishments are London university, King's college, University college. Gordon college, Regent's Park col lege, Net° college, Wesleyan college, HacA;ney college, training colleges belonging to the national, British and foreign, and home and colonial school societies, Westmtnster school, St. PauCs school, Charter-house school, Christ's Hospital or the Blue-coat school, the Gray and Green-coat schools, Merchant-tailors' school, .Mercers' gram. mar school, City of London school, and two ladies' colleges. The new schools, which have been built by the London school board, are large and handsome.
There are about 70 alms-houses in London. The societies, associations, and institu tions of a more or less permanent character, maintained for other than money-making objects, are not less than 600 in number. Of the hospitals, the chief are Guy's, St. Thomas's, the London, the Poplar, the Westminster, the Charing Cross, St. George's, St. Mary's, Middlesex, King's College, University College, Great Northern, the Small-pox, tbe Fever, the Consumption, the Lock, and the Royal free hospitcds. St. Thomas's hospital, a magnificent pile, has lately been rebuilt on the Albert or southern Thames embankment, opposite the houses of parliament. St. Luke's, and Bethlehem (for insane persons), and the foundlittg hospdal are special in their objects. Of the 600 institutions above alluded
to, about 200 are hospitals, dispensaries, infirmaries, and asylums; while the remaining 400 are religious, visiting, or benevolent institutions.
There are law-courts, civil and criminal, of all degrees of dignity, and with various extent of jurisdiction, scattered over London. For some of the more important of them, more worthy buildings are being erected near the Strand. There are 7 sessions-houses (Old Bailey, Guildhall, Tower Hamlets, Southwark, Kensington, Clerkenwell, and Westminster). The prisons have undergone many changes within the last few years, partly owing to the decay of old buildings, and partly to changes in the law of imprison ment. At present the buildings actually used as prisons are about twelve in number, the chief being Newgate, Holloway, Pentonville, Cold Bath Fields, Milbank, Clerken well, Brixton, Fulham, and Wandsworth. The chief buildings in London connected with law and justice are the following: the Westminster hall courts of law and equity; the Lincoln's inn courts of equity; the Guild,h,all courts; the central criminal court in the Old Bailey; ecclesiastical and other special courts at Doctors' Commons, etc. (New buildings designed to take the place of most of these are being erected on ground cleared for the purpose between the Strand and Lincoln's inn.) What are called the inns of court are in some sense colleges for practitioners in the law; they comprise the inner temple, the middle temple, Lincoln's inn, and Gray's inn; and there are others called inns of chancery, comprising. Thanes's, Furnival's, Staple, Barnard's, Clifford's, Cle ment's, Lyon's, New, and Seveant's inns. Connected incidentally with legal matters is the record ogee, a large depository for official papers in Fetter lane. The legal practi tioners in London, besides judges, etc., comprise about 4,000 solicitors and attorneys, and 2,000 barristers.
In connection with the shipping of London, and the import and export trade, the docks above named contain more than 300 acres of water space, and a large amount of warehouse, shed, and vault accommodation—besides warehouses in various parts of the city, away from the docks. From 6,000 to 7,000 ships enter these docks annually. Nearly all the sailing-vessels which come to London laden with coal, instead of entering docks to unload their cargoes, lie in the stream of the river, and transfer their coal to lighters, which convey it to the yards of coal-merchants, situated either on the banks of the river itself, or of the canals which run into it. One-fourth of the whole ship tonnage of England, and one-half of the large steamers belong to London. Of the ships that enter the port of London, about 60 per cent are engaged in the foreign and colonial trade, 40 per cent in the coasting trade. About 100 vessels enter the port erery day, four-fifths British, the rest foreign. The value of all the merchandise exported from the port of London is nearly one-fourth of that of the exports for the whole United Kingdom. The imports of wheat, flour, cotton, dye-stuffs, palm-oil, and some other articles, are greater into Liverpool than into London; but London takes the lead in the imports of colonial produce, wines, and spirits. London receives about half of the total customs revenue of the kingdom, owing to the fact that duty-paying commodities con stitute so larg.e a proportion of its aggregate imports.