In South London there are two millions of people. It is therefore one of the great cities of the world. It stands upon an area about twelve miles long and five or six broad--but its limits cannot be laid down even approximately. It is a city without a municipality, without a centre, without a civic history; it has no newspapers, magazines, or journals; it has no university; it has no colleges, apart from medicine; it has no intellectual, artistic, scientific, musical, literary centre--unless the Crystal Palace can be considered a centre; its residents have no local patriotism or enthusiasm--one cannot imagine a man proud of New Cross; it has no theatres, except of a very popular or humble kind; it has no clubs, it has no public buildings, it has no West End. It is argued that although it has none of these things, yet it has them all by right of being a part of London. That is, in a sense, true. The theatres, concerts, picture galleries of the West End are accessible to the South. Far be it from me to deny the culture of Sydenham and the artistic elevation of Tooting. Yet one feels there must surely be some disadvantage in being separated from the literary and artistic circles whose members, it must be confessed, reside for the most part in North London. It must surely, one thinks, be a disadvantage for a young man who would pursue a career in art not to live among people who habitually talk of art and think of art. It must surely be some disadvantage to live in a place where the people, when they are gathered together, mostly allow the conversation to turn upon things connected with the City.
There are, in fact, four layers. First, there is the 'submerged' element, the people of the slums of which mention has been made. Their numbers and their proportion to the whole I know not. Next, there are the working people, those for whom the long lines, the endless lines, of barracks called model lodging-houses, have been built. Here they live by the hundred thousand--by the million: there are more than a million working men in South London. For their use are the shops of the Borough, chiefly provision shops, and the public houses. The third layer is found on a slip of ground, of which Newington and Kennington may be taken as representative: it consists principally of lodging-houses for clerks. The fourth layer is that of the suburban villa, from the little semi-detached cottage to the stately mansion. The 'High Street,' filled with shops, is for the villas.