My sojourn in London was in truth so short that I did not manage to take in much more than the broad outlines of its countenance. London is so vast, so complex in its physical structure, that to explore all four corners of the city and scrutinise all its secrets would require several years of continuous study. And yet, what a strange phenomenon is to be found in the character of this immense metropolis! To conduct a statistical analysis of London, a lengthy period of observation is imperative, but to understand its general structure, fifteen days well used are quite sufficient.

Paris has not even half of the conspicuous grandeur of London, and yet to appreciate the French capital’s full span of riches one needs more time than is required to come to a perfect acquaintance with London. Why? The reason is clear: London is absolutely nothing more than the world’s metropolis of industry and commerce – in other words, the colossal reflection of just one of the great facets of civilisation – whereas Paris is the metropolis of civilisation in all of its manifestations; a complex and multicoloured physiognomy. In London, everything can be reduced to the circulation of material wealth, with very few exceptions. In Paris, not only do we see the movement of wealth; we also find gathered in one place all of the treasures of the arts, the sciences, and all that is sensitive and spiritual in human refinement.

For all the great British capital’s splendid gardens and museums, famous churches, palaces and bridges, magnificent parks, sumptuous banks, and all the many other landmarks (generally new) which are worthy of the visitor’s attention, to best understand the moral, social and economic conditions of London society, the places where it should really be studied are threefold: the press, the streets, and the Thames. It is in these places that London fully unfolds itself, accompanied by its deafening noise, to the eyes of the traveller who observes and reflects upon it without prejudice. While the public monuments bear witness to the strength and pride of the English people, the streets of London and the banks of the Thames together reveal the weaknesses and deep vice inherent in this society, and the press exposes its political and economic life.

But in order to grasp the full idea, it is not enough to explore the great arteries of London where its dynamism is most in evidence: on the contrary, London has two faces, one which terrifies and distresses, and another which dazzles. One must look on both, almost simultaneously, and compare them without prejudice, in order to understand the astonishing contrasts of the whole. He who leaves London having studied only one face of this colossus, this real sphinx of humanity, will take away the most erroneous ideas, believing, depending on which side its physiognomy he has seen, that London is all magnificent splendour, all progress and wellbeing – or else all poverty, filth and unparalleled depravity…

Let us, then, look closely at London, starting with its streets. It should not be forgotten that London came into being through the gradual assimilation of many small surrounding towns, or boroughs, into the old City of London [1], a bastion of wealth and power located almost at the very centre of today’s vast metropolis. Consequently, although it has the appearance of a single city, there are significant differences between London’s centre and its outlying areas. While commerce reigns in the centre, the outskirts are dominated by manufacturing; and so here hundreds of thousands of workers are gathered together, the streets are wider, the houses more widely spaced and not as tall, and in general there is evidence of a certain degree of modest prosperity which is as far from the extravagance and bustle as it is from the grinding poverty of the inner suburbs. Here, the towering chimneys of factories jut up in their thousands, the elegant carriage is very seldom seen, great throngs of carts teeming with goods weave their way around each other, dishonesty is less apparent, and everywhere one looks there is evidence of active work, with none of the ostentation of luxury, of lavish palaces and shimmering department stores.

Crossing from these suburbs into the centre of the city, there is a generally peaceful and handsome transition zone made up of aristocratic and elegant neighbourhoods, which, especially towards the west of the city, are set around pleasingly majestic parks. Here, in the environs of Regents Park, St James’ Park, Green Park, Hyde Park and a number of others, are found the opulent palaces, the elegant, exquisitely fronted family seats, the beautiful homes which, over no more than three or four floors, house the wealthy, the pleasure palaces and official residences of royalty; in short, the entire segment of the city given over exclusively to luxury, where instead of factories and warehouses there is nothing but avenues, aristocratic and rather less aristocratic mansions, broad, clean and peaceful boulevards, squares sheltering exquisite gardens in their centres behind iron fences, and everything that intimates comfort and good taste.

If the factories and the sedentary working class occupy the outskirts, and elegant society is clustered around or near the parks and in some of the great thoroughfares of the centre, such as Piccadilly and others nearby, the greatest concentration of business and commercial activity is found in the central districts. Walking down Oxford Street, Regent’s Street, the Strand and the City’s most bustling streets, such as Ludgate Hill [2], Cornhill or Cheapside, is the best way to admire that ebb and flow of people, carriages, merchandise, and every noisy thing; that bustle of revolting beggars, their rags rubbing up against the plush capes of elegant ladies; that vast array of department stores, shops offering a plethora unfathomable riches; that perpetual, multi-layered din of the most diverse voices echoing in their thousands; the grotesque mass of hawkers and their wares, of barrel organs, of street artists and eccentrics, of thrilling acrobats skilled in taking advantage of fools, of thieving rascals on the lookout for any opportunity to ply their trade; that coming and going of surly coachmen, the real riffraff amongst all the world’s crooks; this spectacle of gold and muck, of grandeur and shame, of pride and prostitution, of hunger and selfishness, of luxury and social annihilation…

London has two great aristocracies, both equally bizarre, which rule over all of its boroughs. First there is the nobility; excessively proud but nonetheless founded on superiority of birth and wealth, endowed with some elevation of mind by education and through active involvement in public affairs. Then there is the aristocracy of money; the families of bankers and stock market speculators, of businessmen, manufacturers and money-lenders who, coming from nothing on the strength of hard-won speculation, on arriving at affluence often forget their origins, renouncing the sanctity of the hard work that earned them their fortunes. Seated on their piles of gold as if on impervious thrones, they glance down occasionally in distain at the masses, as if they were no more than a swarm of loathsome insects! This second aristocracy, the most noble in its origins (that is, work) but in some ways the most abhorrent in its conduct (its selfishness and pride) is the one that holds sovereignty in the centre of London.

And what a great contrast between the gilt carriages of these millionaire bankers and splendid nobles, and the stinking, outlandish rags of the thousands and thousands of beggars! The first drive out to display their opulence, shimmering in the light of the sun or the countless gas lamps that light the streets, convinced that they are venerated like demigods by the mob. Their pride lets them look down on their fellow men as if they were animals as they swarm around the carriage, hungry, consumed by fatigue, ruined by every vice, and later run over in the main streets by the very horses that draw the coveted carriage. What wretched deception comes from pride! That sallow, starving rabble watches the powerful go by with a feeling of profound hatred, embittered by the contrast. Every one of these sorry social pariahs says to himself, with gloomy spite, “Many of those men have a hundred, two hundred, five hundred or more pounds of income, every single day, twenty at the very least, while I, even when things are going well, can barely scrape together tree, four or maybe six pennies to keep me in filthy rags…what one of those gentlemen spends on just one of those splendid horses would sustain my entire family…that lord’s dogs are more respectable and content than I am, and what that banker’s sweetheart spends on her gloves in one week is a good deal more than what my wife, an honest woman, earns in a whole year of drudgery.”

Who know what curses accompany the sighs of the wretched pauper who harbours these thoughts, while the noble lord reflects on his plans for his next shooting trip or the seduction a young girl, or while the arrogant banker calculates the profits of his latest amusement at the stock exchange!