THE GROWTH OF LONDON.

Auckland Star, Volume XXII, Issue 35, 11 February 1891, Page 8

THE GROWTH OF LONDON.

The City is Five Times as Large Now AS IX was in 1800.

We are too frequently disposed to think of the rapid growth of our American cities as merely incidental to the settlement of a new country, and to regard the European cities as old" and stationary. Ib is true that their nuclei are ancient, but so far as the greater parb of their built-up area is concerned they are almost or quibe as new as the American cities. They, like our own population cenbres, have grown unprecedenbedly in recenb decades as the result of modern transportation and industrial systems. Thus London to-day is five timee aa large as ib was at the opening of the present century. From 900.000 ab that time, the population of London grew to 1,500,000 in 1830; and by 1855 it had increased to 2,500,000. Since 1855 ib has more than doubled. The present sovereign has witnessed a gain of 200 per cenb. or more since she began bo reign. There are three or four dwelling houses now for every one that waa visible ab the date of her coronation. In the past forty years from two thousand to two thousand rive hundred miles of new streets have been formed in London. Who, studying the growth of foreign cities, can doubt the continued growth of our own ? London is not an exception. All the other great towns of England have grown up aa if by magic within this century. The same statement applies to those of the Continent. Paris is five times as large as ib was in the year 1800; Berlin has grown much more rapidly than Paris ; Vienna has expanded marvellously since 1840. This is a digression ; but I shall continue it enough further to remark whab an examination of the causes which have built up these European centres easily justifies the judgment that none oi our twenty leading American cities has begun to approach its maximum. —' The Century.'