The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-12-27
THE SECOND CITY.
New York is Now Next to London and
Rapidly Gaining.


Utica Observer.
New York is now beyond question the
second of the worlds great cities-that is,
IL you count as New York all that Is
properly part of it. Oh, yes, know all
about the census and those figures in the
big almanac, and the statesman
Year Book" and so you need
not quote them. They say, it is true, that
pie, and Toxic, Japan, I,656,048, and
Berlin 1,3l5,2S7 and growing fast,
while London now has about AGO.
600. BY the Federal census of 1890
New York had but ISIS. sol, while
Chicago, Philadelphia and Brooklyn fol-
low in the order named. And we all see
that Chicago IS the great inland city of
this continent, and SO there need be no
more fuss about ii.
But these are only superficial figures.
What propose is to take as parts of the
metropolis such sections as are as close TO
Its center as the other sections of London
are. For instance, one can reach any
part of Brooklyn, Newark, the Or
anges or several other cities from the
city hall in New York in less time by
considerable than he can reach Kensing-
ton, Kew, Greenwich, or Hampstead from
Plcadilly or the Strand. AS many people
OF the former do business in New York as
there are of the latter who do business in
central London, and the general charac-
terIstlcs are certainly more similar.
The test is pre-eminently a fair one.
With the city hall IN New York as a CEN
ter, describe a circle with radius of thirty
miles, and all within that circle are New
Gorkers-far more so than the people of
Hampstead, Greenwich and Richmond are
Londoners. And the people within that
area are numbered thus:
New York Isis. Sol
L. ooS,9i'
Other adjacent towns. .................. I3345S
Ou JeiasS eiue- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. S1o2lo
Total metropolitans 8,5i2 3ol
Americans are SO accustomed to phe-
nomenal growths in their own country,
towns and cities multiplying so fast that
the most versatile inventor of names is
exhausted, and, sweeping madly through
the geography has put Warsaw, Carthage
and Paradise, Cairo, Paris and Moscow,
SoonoVer and Winnesheik all in one state,
that they take it for granted that New
1ork's growth is unprecedented. On that
point might safely assert without argu-
ment, but on examination the case APP
pears quite different. 1t is really a
question if London's growth is not more
phenomenal than that of New York.
In Roman times, they say, London once
had 10000 people. Later it had few or
none. In the twelfth century it had about
$1,000, and in the reign OF William III.
about 10000. Then it began to grow, and
at the opening of this century English
men exultingly invited all the world
to come and see the wonderful metropolis
of $4,000 people. In 1871 there were
ISIS, 600, and twenty years later but 1915
60. And then nearly all the statisticians
agreed that 1t had got its growth, while
serious thinkers grieved and prophesied
disaster if people continued to crowd the
metropolis.
1t is amusing TO read these predictions.
for the rapid increase was just setting in.
In 1851 there were .. So3 $50 people. in 1871
1886 s7, and in 1sSl S,Sl6,4s3. And
as the city grew it infolded and
absorbed other cities. more of them and
bigger ones every year, until today its pop
ulatlOn Is certainly over 1900 600 Appar-
emily, therefore, London has for thirty
years grown faster than New York proper:
but Paris shows strange contrast, thus: