The early clerk population are fast pouring into the city, middle-aged men whose salaries have by no means increased in the same proportion as their families, plod steadily along, apparently with no object in view but the counting house, knowing by sight almost everybody they meet or overtake. For they have seen them every morning, Sunday excepted, during the last 20 years but speaking to no-one. On the October 16th 1834, the Houses of Parliament burned to the ground. Once again, it was as though the day of judgement for the city was at hand. Among the astonished crowd was a Cockney artist named Joseph Mallord William Turner.


早期的职员们迅速涌进城市，这些中年人的薪资水平，远跟不上他们家庭的需求，他们夜以继日地工作，除了养家糊口，别无他想。虽然20年来很多人已互相面熟，但除周日外 每天早上他们都会擦身而过。却始终未说过一句话。1834年10月16日，议会大楼在火光中轰然崩塌。伦敦仿佛再次置身末日审判。惊恐的人群里包括一位伦敦的本土艺术家，约瑟夫·马洛·威廉·特纳。