Guildhall

the council hall of London. It is situated near the very heart of historic London at the end of King Street, leading a block aside from the rattle and clatter of Cheapside. It is an irregular building, or rather a group of connected buildings. If fires and enlargements be taken into consideration, we may say the first foundation was laid in 1411 and the last roof put on in 1885.

The great hall is a central audience room, where citizens transact such public business as the election of a lord mayor and city members of Parliament. It was put in repair in 1865 at an expense of $150,000. It is a large handsome hall 153 feet long and 48 feet wide. A remarkable open timber ceiling is 55 feet above the floor. There are stained glass windows representing the armorial bearings of Queen Victoria and of the city. The walls are adorned with statues and busts of Lord Chatham, Wellington, Nelson, William Pitt, Mayor Beckford, Beaconsfield, and Gladstone. Every ninth of November the Lord Mayor on his induction to office gives a dinner here to a thousand invited guests. It is not beneath the dignity of the prime minister to be present and to make an afterdinner speech in which the policy of the government is defined.

The new common council chamber and the alderman's room are other parts of the building reached by passages. They are adorned by busts and historic paintings. Among the latter are the Siege of Gibraltar by Copley and the Death of Wat Tyler by Northcote.

The Guildhall library, built in Tudor style, contains 40,000 volumes, including rare specimens of early printing. It is the aim of the custodians to center here a complete collection of all books, manuscripts, descriptions, prints, plans, or pictures that in any way throw light on the history of London. A department, known as the museum, contains a wonderfully interesting collection of Roman antiquities found in London. There are groups of sculpture, six-sided marble columns, Roman pavements, stone coffins, statues, and thousands of lamps, vases, dishes, goblets, spoons, trinkets, pins, needles, and the like found in excavating old Roman walls at Bishopsgate, in cutting down Ludgate Hall, and elsewhere.