THE author's endeavour in the following pages will be to present a series of pictures of the many phases of London life, of the past as well as of the present, and of the people in their habits and homes, as they lived; to tell the stories of its historic and romantic events, of the celebrated personages who have walked its streets; and to render the volume equally amusing to the Londoner who knows his London by heart and to the stranger who is desirous of knowing it.