The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-01-17
THE GREATEST OF ALL CITIES.
The Great Wonder of the World and
Centre of Good and Evil
From the Pal MAI Gazette.

Centre OF GOOd ana EVIL.
From the Pal Mall Gazette.
A huge city like this of ours, with such
boundless possibilities before it for good or
for ill., on the one hand perpetually becom-
ing more unmanageable and more ex-
hausting to life; on the other hand,
continually throwing up unexpected
signs of vitality and hope-such
city stands at the parting of the ways.
1t is already by far the most inorganic
mass of habitations that ever numbered the
planet and to the bulk of its population,
though not to the fortunate minority, 1t is,
alas by far the most depressing. And yet,
even now it is the healthieSt of all capitals;
and in certain aspects of a city one of the
best ordered; to very few one of the
pleasantest. Which is to prevail in the
future-the boundless evil or the boundless
goods
Take the first, the darker side. Here is
the hugest assemblage of buildings ever
piled by mon on one spot of earth. For
three centuries one of the great fears of
thinking persons has been the enormous
growth of London; and yet, till about 100
years ago, neither its population nor its
area were what we should now call abnor-
NAL. But since the last hundred years it
has advanced by leaps and bounds, increas-
ing It's population fourfoid within this cen
Even in my own lifetime the area of Lon
| don has increased at least fivefold and its
| population between two and threefOld. SO
| that now we have a continuous population
of some 100000, packed in an area not
far of 100 square miles, with nearly 1000
miles of streets, hardly anywhere less than
ten or eleven miles in a straight line.
And where is it going to stopl Every
year 10000 souls, roughly speaking, are
added by immigration and births; every
wear more square miles are added to the
area. Year by year some 10000 immigrants
press into this city; that is the population of
fair county town, so that every ten years
there is added to London by immigration
alone city as large as Bristol or Lisbon
and by the entire series of causes, a new city
as large as st. Petersburg or Vienna. And
thus already, in this corner of the tn mes
there is huddled together about one-siXth Of
the entire population of England Where
is it to stop7' we ask, as the tide of immi-
grants pour 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 size and
numbers of London have alarming conse-
Quences of their own. Great cities have to
grow organically, with some kind Of self
adaptation to their development But the
increase of London defes adaptation and
adjustment. The 10000 new souls a year
arrive before London has time to consider
what she can do with them. The bricks
pour down in irregular heaps, almost as if,
in some cataclysm or tornado, it We're rain
ing bricks out of heaven on the earth be-
low. The huge pail of smoke gets
denser and more sulphurous, stretch
ing ont they say, some thirty miles
into the country, till Berkshire, Bucks,
Herts and Kent are beginning to be pol
] 1t,4a hxyi re clio
the Royal Exchange, 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 mora than half of 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, contami-
mated air, in which trees will no longer
grow to full size, and the sulphurous
vapor of which eats away the sur
face of stone The beautiful river
our once silver Thames-is a turbid,
muddy receptacle of refuse; at times
indescribably nasty and unwholesome. The
water we drink is continually polluted with
| drainage, and at times comes seriously near
| TO being injurious TO health. Our burying
places, old and new, are perpetual anxiety
and danger. Our sewers pour forth $500
| 900 tons of sewerage per week almost
| ali of it wastefully and dangerously dis
charged. An immense proportion of our
working population are insuiiciently
] housed in cherries, comfortless and even
unhealthy lodgings. Not few of these are
miserable dens or squalid cabins unfit for
human dwelling place. Every few years
some epidemic breaks out which carries off
its thousands In some four-flfths of Lon
don the conditions of life are sadly depress-
ing 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, TO
morality, to the intelligence, are very real
and ever present
No safer Remedy can be had for Coughs and
Cnlda or my f,.nIal,lo 81 lie Throat tlann