THE WONDERS OF KING'S CROSS.
GRAYS' Ian Lane is classic ground in the eyes of the true Cockney. It is the main outlet from Holborn to the rural retreats of Copenhagen House, and leads to the "People's Ancient Concert Room" at Bag- nigge Wells, and the sylvan groves of the aperient Saint Chad, the Chel- tenham of Clerkenwell. Here too, in the bosom of the vale of Pancras, stood the Ossa and Pelion of the dust-contractors, those immense mounds of cinders, to which "ashes to ashes, dust to dust" were added as fast as the dead-carts brought their putrid loads to the churchyard. pits in the time of the great plague. But the (lust heaps have been carted off; St. Chad no longer attracts the votaries of health, who once made weekly pilgrimages to his groves, there to pour out saline libations and perform their peripatetic devotions ; Bagnigge Wells is voted ?vulgar; and the pale star of Copenhagen fades before the rising glories of the sun of White Conduit. Pentonville looks down upon Pancras ; Bruns- wick Square catches up her skirts from the contagious approaches of Battlebridge ; and the Small-pox Hospital is vaccinated. A new locality is being created ; and the imposing designation of King's Cross, which is now bestowed upon this late neglected corner of the suburbs, to- gether with the constant flux and reflux of the tide of Paddington coaches, will speedily rescue from degradation this ancient neighbour- hood. It should be called Phcenix Town, rising as it does from heaps of ashes.
The Royal London Bazaar, and Mr. LANZA'S Panannonion and its gardens, are the rival attractions of the place, to whose wonders we will endeavour to cicerone our readers.
THE BAZAAR.
The London Bazaar is a building surrounding four sides of a peril- lellogram, either end of whicls abuts upon Grays' Inn Lane and Liver-
pool Street, New Road, from both of which there arc entrances. The ground floor is designeti for a riding-school, the original intention of forming a horse bazaar and carriage repository having been abandoned. The principal floor is devoted to the bazaar for fancy articles ; and con- sists of two ranges of counters occupying the sides of the building, which are two hundred and forty feet in length, and terminate at one end in a splendid and spacious saloon, and at the other in a gallery for exhibitions. The counters are fitted up in fanciful taste, with small Statues and busts, and the walls are covered with attractive little views. A hatab;ome display of toys, bijoux, articles of dress and fancy-works, together with some splendid pieces of furniture, plaster casts, &c., are displayed on the counters and in the galleries. There is also a room sixty feet in length hy thirty in height for Concerts or Assemblies, to which purpose also the grand saloon of the bazaar might in a few hours be appropriated. The arrangements are very complete, and the whole establishment has now but one want—visitors; and they increase in number daily.
TUE ENIIIBITIONS.
Here are to be seen also a needle-work picture of (nu Dottie of the Pyramids, and a little collection of New Zealand weapons; but the principal attraction consists in a trio of Nature's freaks, in the persons of an American giantess, a Spanish dwarf, and an Albinese child. We remember the awe with which, in our "schoolboy day of prime," we used to contemplate the shoe of O'Brien, the Irish giant, which was hung outside his travelling caravan at the fairs as a sample of his stature. The sight of it never failed to recall to mind the passage in one of the books of Moses, "Over Edom will I cast out my shoe," and a myste- rious and visionary idea of a portentous shoe, stretching over Palestine, was conjured up by our imagination. We almost expected to see an enormous kid slipper at the door of the Pavilion of the American giantess : but her foot and hand are by no means extraordinary, in re- lative proportion to her stature, which is seven feet in height. Her per- son is well formed, though cast in the heroic mould. She is no ogress ; she has not joints like a camelopard ; she is merely a colossal lady, well dressed, and well-lookime. Her companions are the little Albinese girl, with white hair, soft as silk, red eyes, and looking like a piece of fine wax-work. The Spanish dwarf is the same that was exhibited at the Adelphi Theatre, ineking his appearance no the pantomime from out of a large nut I Be is a btirly dwarf, with a large round face and olive complexion, and scents like a man squeezed into himself at both ends— a human knan. He is a very merry fellow; and when he dances, looks like a living humming-top.
MR. THORRINGTON'S RAILWAY.
M. LANZA'S Panarmonion Theatre is for size and embellishment a Chinese bird-cage, with its cane work and dragons. The Panarmonion gardens are not yet qualified for tea-parties : a very ambitious-looking bason for jeis d'eau, and a bulky waterfall with rows of cells, are being constructed. The garden serves, however, a far more useful purpose, being appropriated to the exhibition of an ingenious railway, invented by Mr. THORRINGTON, which encircles the area of the enclosure. It consists of a double row of slight wrought-iron pillars, supporting a light beam, along the top of which is a bar of iron, on which run a couple of .grooved wheels, to which the carriage is suspended be- tween the pillars supporting the railway. The motion is exceed- ingly easy, and there is scarcely any friction, because the inner sides of the grooved wheels do not come in contact with the bar on which they run. The propelling power of the boat-shaped car now employed is a common lathe-wheel, worked by a man in the car, who by common exer- tion can propel the carriage, when loaded, at the rate of eleven miles an hour. Any description of motive power may be applied ; the invention being confined to the simple principle of the railway. The advantages of an elevated railroad were fully dwelt upon in Our notice of Mr. Dicit's patent.
RING'S CROSS.
The last of the novelties on this spot is the structure which gives its name to the new neighbourhood—King's Cross. It is a cumbrous archi- tectural tumour, apparently designed to obviate the convenience which the removal of the toll-house afforded to carriages ; and it seems rather a butt against which to run omnibuses, or to overturn stage-coaches, than a useful or ornamental structure. It is now a cross without a king—a folly; and when completed it will be nothing better.
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