Note 13 — Chapter XIV · OLD SUBURBAN MANSIONS.

There has been an enemy working underground during the past years—an ogre more wholesale and omnivorous than has yet appeared. This arises out of the burrowing of the underground lines in the City—the grand teredo, such as bored its way to the Mansion House Station from the Tower. It has been stated “that there has been no such general demolition since the days of the Great Fire. No less than 130 houses, some of them the oldest in London, and two of the City halls, have been pulled down in order to construct the new thoroughfare which continues Gracechurch Street to Tower Hill. The general destruction is added to by the tunnelling of the link line from the Tower to the Mansion House.”