The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1893-07-08
CHICAGO NOW LEADS.
Largest City ON the American Con
tIneat.

Largest City On the American Con-
| tin~nt.
J CHICAGO, June 29.-Chicago Is to-day
| the metropolis of America
! Within the legal limits of the city
! there lives n tbs moment & perma-
nent resident population Of nearly
1000, 900 souls.
! Chicago's population Is about 400, 900
larger than New \ ork's.
The city's growth during the past
| two years has been extraordinary. II
! has been the most wonderful in all her
| magical history At single leap she
/ places herself at the head OF the line
! of American cities and has entered
! into swift competition with London
and Paris for still higher honors. by
the end of the century she will have
only one rival in tine field9 Young
men who voted for Grover Cleveland
will live to see Chicago and London
neck and neck.
Census taking is too slow to register
the amazing growth of Chicago. 1t
does not even serve the purpose Of
marking the high spots in the progress
OF regulation concentration. The
past two ears eclipse any in the his.
tory of the city in point of actual in
crease in permanent population and
in substantial gain in every material
way. The ratio of in :rease since 1891
has ben without precedent. 1t has
broken all previous records
The government census taken in
June and July, 1890, gave to Chicago a
population o; ! 100000, in round num-
beers. The 'hool census, which is exact
as far as il goes. but which is still
necessarily imperfect and in complete.
was taken about the same time ana
made il EOS, 0JO.
Two years iat.r lin 1897 the school
census gave the population as ,,43s,-
600, and n month or two before
the official enume: alton was com
pleted the Chi, ago directory
publishers estimated population OF
Chicago at l,4an,OOo. There is no
school census this year. but the city
directory will be issued about
the middle of July-will contain $50
more pages than las, year. Each page
of the directory represents, according
to the publishers method of comput-
ing population, triiie less than 800
people, each page containing an aver
age Of little over 800 names
On the basis of previous computa-
tions the 1898 directory will show a
population of about 1850, 600 at the
present. 1t is a notorious fact, how
ever, that the publishers of the Chicago
Directory lean very strongly and de-
cidedl V To the side of conservatism in
making population estimates, and in
years of exceptional progress in the
city's growth these estimates have
fallen considerably below the mark.
For instance, The Chicago Directory
estimate is generally predicted on the
theory that the name, in the book rep
resent about one person in three resi-
dents in the city. This is a smaller ratio
than is employed ia any other city of
Importance in the country. In New
York the &C opted ratio is 4 TO /, which
is the basis usually taken in making
calculations of that sort in other cities.
The Chicago Directory for 1898 wi
contain approximately ], 800 pages and
$40, OC0 names. On a basis of to
this would give Chicago a population
of 2,l60,00 The figure is probably not
far out of the wav.
II 4 to is correct basis of calcula-
tion in New York, Phi adelph a Brook
1yn, Cincinnati, st. Louis, Cleveland.
Pitt>burg, Buffalo, Detroit and
other large cities land it is ac-
cepted oy the leading statisticians
of all those cities without question:
lhcrc 10 NO Sooi reason why ~ sHOuiu
not be applied here. There was time
after the great fire when the transient
population of Chicago was dispropor-
tionately large, but during the last
ten years the tendency has been radi-
cally the other way. 1t is at the
present writing as distinctively a city
of homes as Philadelphia
HOT BATTLE WITH CONvICTS.
Three California Prisoners Killed