Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1888-03-01
THE GREATEST OF ALL CITIES.
The Great Wonder of the World and Center
Good and Evil.
Pail Mall Gazette.


A huge city like this of ours, with such
boundiess possibilities before 1t for good
or for ill, on the one hand perPetually be-
coming more unmanageable and more
exhausting to life; on the other hand,
continually throwing up unexpected
sigGs of vitality and hope--suck city
stands at the parting of the ways. 1t is
already by far the most inorganic mass
of habltations that ever numbered the
planet, and to the bulk of It's population,
though not to the fortunate minority, it
is, alas! by far the most depressing. And
yet, even now it is the healthiest of all
capitals; and in certain aspects of city
one of the best ordered; to a very few.
Which is to prevail in the future-the
boundlesS evil or the boupdless good?
Take the first, the darker side. Here
Is the hugest assemblage of buildings
ever piled by men on one spot of earth.
For three centuries one of the great fears
of thinking people has been the enor-
nous growth of London; and yet, till
about hundred years ago, neither its
population nor area were what we
should call abnormal. But since the last
hundred years it has advanced by leaps
and bounds, increasing its population
fourfold within this century and it's area
at least ten or fifteen fold. Even in my
own lifetime the area of London has in
creased It least fvefold and its popula-
ticn between two and threefold. So that
we now have continuous population of
some four millions, with nearly 1000
miles of streets, hardly anywhere less
than ten or eleven miles in a straight
line.
And wheie is is going to stop? Every
year 10000 souls, roughly speaking, are
added by immigration and births; every
year more square miles are added to the
area. Year by year some 10000 immi-
grants press into this city; that is the
population Of fair country town, SO that
every ten years there is added to London
by immigration clone a city as large as
Bristol or Lisbon; and by the entire
series OF causes, new city as large as st.
Petersburg or Vienna. And thus already
in this corner of the Thames, there is
huddled together about onesixth of the
entire population of England. "Where
is it to stop?" we ask, as the tide of i'm
migrants pours in, and great armies of
builders are perpetually laying fresh
acres of meadow under brick.
Size and numbers are not necessarily
bad things per Sc. But unhappily the
ing consequences of their own. Great
cities have to grow organicly, with some
kind of self adaptation to their develop
ment. But the increase of London defies
adaptation and adjustment. The 10000
new souls year arrive before London
has time TO consider what she can do
with them. The bricks pour down in IT.
regular heaps, almost as If, IN some cata-
cIysm or tornado, it were raining bricks
out of heaven on the earth below. The
huge pail OF smoke gets denser and more
sui phurous, stretching out, they say,
some thirty miles into the country, till
Berkshire, Bucks, Herts and Kent are be-
ginning to be polluted by its cloud.
From Charing Cross or the Royal Ex-
change a man has to walk some five or six
miles before he can see the blessed
meadows or breathe the country air.
Few of US ever saw more than half the
city we live in, and some Of US never saw
nine tenths of it. We all live more or
less in SCOT and fog, in smoky, dusty,
contaminated air, IN which trees VIII no
longer grow to their full size, and the
sulphurous vapor OF which eats away the
surface Of stone. The beautiful river
our once silver Than es-is turbid mud
IN Hdy receptacle of refuse; at times in
describably nasty and unwholesome.
The water we drink is continually polluted
with drainage, and at these times comes
periiously near to being injurious to
health. Our burying places, old and
new are perpetual anxiety and danger.
Our sewers pour forth 100000 tons of
sewerage per week, almost all of it waste
fully and dangerously discharged. An
immense proportion of our working pop
ulation are insuficiently housed in cheer
less, comfortless and even unhealthy
lodgings. Not few of these are misera-
bic dens or squalid cabins unfit for hu-
man dwelling place. Every few years
some epidemic breaks out which carries
off its thousands. In some four-ffths of
London the conditions of life are sadly
depressing and sordid, with none of the
advantages which city life affords. The
amusements, such as they are, are often
unworthy of US; the resources of health
and recreation are too few; while the
dangers to life, tc morality, TO the intelli-
gence, are very real and ever present.