affirmative decision as to this concentration system was finally taken, there was happily space sufficient still available in the convenient vicinity of London. There, then, in due time, arose the grandest and most multifarious edifice of its day, and perhaps of any time preceding; for in this particular case, as in that of reconstructed London in general, care was taken that the measure of the wants in office accommodations should be rather that of the expanding future than of the limited present. The ground floor embraced postal and telegraph, customs and taxes, police and justice, and those general governmental departments to which the public have daily to resort. The floors above were reserved for the departments of thought, study, and general work. There, accordingly, was all the afterwork of the offices below; there also sat our Parliament, revelling in the roomy fresh-aired suitabilities of the new quarters; and there, too, was collected and ingeniously arranged the contents of our comprehensive British Museum, presented upon one spacious floor level, and magnificently surmounted and lighted by the grandest dome in the world.
This novel structure was also the successful result of a special trust, created after that way of those times, by which so many great works, not perhaps otherwise to be attempted, were promptly and easily accomplished. The costs, in this particular case, were recouped chiefly from fines, fees, and rents levied on the various interests and parties supplied or benefited, as well as from the realizations from the superseded old sites. But it was still possible to spare not a few of these latter as spaces permanently open for the public. On finally winding up this
