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Show City of London Financial ;Hub' Of British Isles Great Commercial Center Selected as Target By Bombers. (Releaied by Western Newspaper Union.) WASHINGTON. The compact com-pact . "downtown" financial district of London known as the City, which is the special target for German raiders' incendiary bombs and the scene of England's greatest fire in three centuries, has been acclaimed one of the most important commercial areas of its size in the world, j The irregular semicircle of I ancient streets beside the Thames known as the City is only one square mile in area, but for centuries it has -set the financial pace of the world, according to the National Na-tional Geographic society. The Bank of England, known as the exclusive "Old Lady of Thread-needle Thread-needle Street" aits in the midst of It a private institution which since WJi has had the exclusive right to issue England's paper money and to hold the reserve funds of all other banks In the country. A coin's throw to the east on Throgmorton street j stands the Stock exchange, which deals in the government bonds of its own and foreign countries, and in the stocks of most Important corporations corpo-rations of the world. London's 'Wall Street.' Throgmorton street becomes the "curb market" for trading In American Amer-ican securities during the daily interval in-terval between the closing of the London exchange and the closing five hours later of New York's stock market. Lombard street noted for its banks, adjoins Threadneedle and Throgmorton streets to form the "Wall street" district of London. Lloyd's of London, a short walk east of Leadenhall street, in 250 years has grown to be the world's largest insurance institution. It is an association of underwriters. Within With-in the area also are the famous old financial house of Rothschild, and the even older Child's bank, which Dickens described in his 'Tale of Two Cities" as Tellson's bank. Within vast metropolitan London, whose 8,000,000 people have spread their buildings over 602 square miles, the "City" is a tight little center packed inside ancient boundaries bounda-ries like an English walnut in its shell. It reaches from the Inns of Court and Fleet street in the west to the Tower of London in the east from London bridge north to Clerk-enwell Clerk-enwell road. This is the oldest part of London. Through 20 centuries it has preserved its identity and practically prac-tically its original limits, thanks to the thick waU 35 feet high built around it by Roman conquerors. Remnants of this frequently rebuilt re-built wall and its nine gates are responsible re-sponsible for the names of such streets as London Wall, Newgate, Aldgate, and Cripplegate, as well as Billingsgate Market. The wall enabled en-abled City dwellers to hold off William Wil-liam the Conqueror, who prudently built his Tower of London just outside out-side the City. Since then, no sovereign sov-ereign has lived within the City. The king today first receives permission per-mission from the lord mayor of London Lon-don before passing the spots, such as the Temple Bar, where modern streets cross the City's antique boundaries. 'City' Deserted at Night. Historic and literary landmarks, some dating from Roman times, All tlie City, barely a yard apart By night the district is usually deserted, desert-ed, since almost the only permanent residents are the custodians or watchmen of buildings which are treasured by the Empire for thci.-past thci.-past or present significance. By day, however, a million people daily crowd in and out of this small area on business. The volume of news dispatched from the newspaper offices of Fleet street in normal times makes this a world center for journalism as well as finance. This same square mile of London's Lon-don's inner core was the birthplace of John Milton, Sir. Thomas More, Charles Lamb, and William Penn. It was the residence of Chaucer, and was visited by countless notables who were Involved In the literary activities ac-tivities of Grub street or Paternoster row. There at 17 Gough square, Dr. Johnson wrote his epochal dictionary diction-ary of the English language. . A few blocks south, within the high paneled walls of Middle Temple hall, on February 2, 1602, a troupe of actors presented a comedy by one of their company, a newcomer named Shakespeare; It was 'Twelfth Night." destined for Broadway in 1941. Famous Men Lived In Area. A physician at old St. Bartholomew's Bartholo-mew's hospital, which had been founded by a king's jester, discovered discov-ered the circulation of the blood-William blood-William Harvey. Meanwhile, In the Fifteenth-century Guildhall, successive succes-sive lord mayors were elected and banqueted under the traditional but mysterious figures of Gog and Magog. Ma-gog. Another landmark of the region re-gion was the Cheshire Cheese, the inn made famous by Dr. Johnson and BoswelL The Old Bailey, site of London's modern criminal courts, has associations with the old debtors' debt-ors' prison and the execution place where malefactors were hanged or burned at the stake; the last burning burn-ing took place in 1789. John Bunyan, William Blake, and Daniel Defoe wandered through the City to a common burial place on its northern fringes. Other tombs In the district include those of John Wesley, the Methodist founding father, fa-ther, and George Fox, first Quaker. Both traffic and tradition center of the City is St Paul's cathedral, "the .empire's parish church." Names of the knotted streets of the City are almost unbelievably quaint: Stew lane, Friday street, Budge row, Knightrider street Red Lion court and Fetter lane. |