, 1889-03-14
The Growth of Citlev.

The trOWth or CitIoe.
The growth Of cities In the present cen.
tury 10 without parallel or precedent in
any previous age OF the world. An exami-
this matter do not lie. shows that the
cities OF ancient and medieval times were
few and insignifcant In comparison with
those OF our own age. When Rome was
at its height Of grandeur and prosperity its
population is estimated to have been from
100000 to 2,500, 900, the EN-
cyclo@dia Britannica" 10 prob
ably not far wrong In putting 1t ut
about 100000. and In all the rest Of
would now be above the third OF fourth
city Of the first rank in Africa was Alex
andria, with q population somewhere be-
tween 500, 900 and !, 900, 900. In Asia, az
far az 70 known TO the European world.
Jerusalem alone had o vast population,
and glance at the area of that city In the
time of Herod the Great shows that II
could never have contained such q popula-
tion as II is sometimes said TO have had.
In the middle ages no city attained to
was called an illustrious city bv the ven.
erable Bede, had population in Shakes
peare's time no larger than Boston has
now. A hundred years later 1t had pop
nlation equal to the present population Of
Chicago. It was not for another hundred
years-that is to say not before the Amer
ican revolution-thnt London had come
10 have as many inhabitants as Philadel-
phia now has. Since then the growth has
been. incredibly rapid. Fifty years ago
London had . population equal to that Of
New York, Brooklyn and Jersey City put
together. and In 1880, it had no less than
$500, ,OOO-that is to say, as large
population as New York, Brooklyn Phila-
delphia, Chicago, st. Louis, Bal
timore, Cincinnati and San Francisco had
in the same year; or, to put it in another
way, the population of London alone in
1880, was rs large as the population OF all
England and Wales at the time of Shake
speare's death. No other city in the world
through the whole of Europe there has
been q marvellous growth Of city popula-
tions during the present century. In Eng
land alone there are now seventy. FIVE cities,
the smallest Of which has 5000 inhaoi-
tants; and IL suburbs could be counted
the figures would be still higher.
A circle, for example, drawn with q
radius Of 6fty miles from Manchester az
center, would include as large a popu.
lation as circle of the same radius and
having it's center ct Charing, Cross; Hun,
uACuo VI c4unAC LuACo VI iuua Al oSceioho
the population Of Scotland continues to
grow, but the increase is in the cities.
Glasgow, which had 10000 inhabitants
fifty years ago, has now as many as
Chicago, and is growing faster than
Chicago. In Ireland, too, In spite Of
its enormous emigration, the city pop
ulation does not fall Off. for the
statistics of emigration. show that
for every two emiRrants from
Irish cities there have been ninety eight
the same laws hold. While the popula.
tion of Belgium has increased II per cent,
that of Brussels has gained 20 and that of
Antwerp has gained 80. In Denmark the
increase OF city populations to the increase
of the whole country ia as to / in Swe.
den 1t is as 4 TO l; in Norway 1t is as 10
to l. In Prussia. while the population of
the country is stationary, the increase in
cities is 25 per cent: and Berlin alone,
which in 1850 had 400, 900, has now l..
100000. In Russia the four chief cities
have doubled their population in twenty
years. Since the war with Germany
Paris adds $4,000 to her population
every year Compared with the changes
going on and hardly observed in this
country, even the enormous facts just
stated are almost insignificant. IL is
etartling to be told that in 1900 there
were in this whole country only six cities
of over 6 900 inhabitants! There are now,
or rather there were in 1880. 286. The
shift of population is we'll shown by the
following figures of NJ. LoomiA: In 1850
only one-thirtieth of the people of the
United States lived in cities of 5000 in.
habitants or over; in 1900 one.twenty-
fifth; in 1880 one-sixteenth; in l840 one
twelfth in 1850 one-eighth in 1860 one
sixth; in 1870 one-ffth; in 1880 nearly
one-fourth. These facts require no com.
ment, they speak for themselves. They
show a change in the habits of the people
of the present age aud especially in this
country, which must bring with it radi.
cal change in all the social conditions of
life.-1he Churchman.