Personification is used to present Victorian London as a filthy polluted area full of crime, as it was in the Victorian era. This further gives a sinister, dark atmosphere towards the setting of the novel to foreshadow dark events anthromophism sinister setting
the fog in chap 4 is described as 'lurid brown like the lighht of some strange conflageration' conflageration is battle language andmeans a large violent event like a war