Catherine Waters argues that the growth of London, and the proliferation of cheap periodicals, particularly after the repeal of the newspaper stamp tax in 1855, generated a new form of ‘metropolitan travel writing’ representing ‘the lived rhythms of urban experience that is a distinctive development in the print culture of the 1850s’. Dickens’s Household Words, launched in 1850, published graphic sketches of city life that provided readers with a vivid experience of imaginary flânerie. This chapter is concerned with George Augustus Sala, a protégé of Dickens, whose 1858 serialised account of a day in London for The Welcome Guest – ‘Twice Round the Clock’ – deploys its serial form to map the temporal geography of the metropolis with an appealing blend of reporting and storytelling.

Recent work on execution emphasizes broad similarities in the character and causes of changing practices across the western world, as well as the strength of resistance to reform in England before the 1830s. In fact, five features gave rise to a distinctive path of change in England following the Restoration of 1660. First, the variable scale of enforcement from one place to another contained the potential excesses of England’s “Bloody Code.” They were additionally contained, secondly, by the “early” advent of constitutional monarchy, which made parliament – and new urban elites – partners in making and enforcing the laws. England’s “urbane” peoples derived particular strength, thirdly and fourthly, from the unique extent of urbanization in England and the vigorous public sphere to which it gave rise. Finally, the experience of London, by 1750 the largest European city, compelled changing practices which gave those people ascendancy in public political culture by the 1830s.