BEWILDERING LONDON.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19760, 10 April 1926, Page 13

BEWILDERING LONDON.

PEOPLE AND WEALTH. If you would turn a dishonest shilling, wager with some of your friends on the number of people there are in the City of London. They are almost certain to say seven millions, or something like that whereas the total is a trifling they are mostly caretakers. Ihe catcft lies y in the fact, as some will but as some won’t, that the City of London u cKcoedi’iiriv Inm.c • '■ extent, and >* made up of the great banking, insurance, shipping, and business area, with few residences. and those only flats. It was alwavs so. At the beginning of the. lain century there were 128,129 people livmg there. But the trend has been outwari , and there are city men living which 125 vears ago were regarded as almost the back of beyond. Paris J^b davs is sometimes described as a suburb of London. "Will there be such a word as “remote” in another 125 years - Bv dipping at random into the pages of a vivid orange-coloured book bearing the arresting title “Statistical Afetract for London, 1915-24,” you discover the new** on which the above statements are .baaed, in addition to a fund of other fasematmg things. SThe work is by the Clerk of *he Lomlnn County Council. 4 The population of London i» “ 7 679,218, including 52,206 from Ireland (the number is increasing eyerv year). 46.0 U from the re=t of the British Emnire. 25,923 Poles. 29.668 Russians. 11,104 Frenchmen, 10,994 Italians, and 5743 Germans. enormous wealth. The wealth of the city is enormous. The rateable value exceeds £50,000,000, mcludin? the citv Yon have to think of London in millions. The travel figures are colossal. Lastyear 3 325 000 000 wore carried on the trams, trams, and buses, divided as Trains R 72 000-000; trams, 968,000,0 W. buses,' 1,435.000,000. There were at that time a million and a-half miles of telephone wire in the L.C.C. area *nd more than £OO million calls were, 'j T* veer. This hu<re traffic is handled by 7051 “hello girls” and 1862 manv for a continuous service. The ro.t Office also had a busv tune, handling 2C.000.000 telegrams. 45.000.000 parcels, a d 20 000,000 postal orders. . *, The value of the food imported was £187.5*15.000, the value of the raw matena s £BO DOO. and of the manufactured goods fhingv but take vm,r breath, awav. You where this London going to end. It no sicn vet of arrested growth. It is sWen ng its limbs with all the vigour of a infant north, south. east and it it reaches ihe full growth of matunty i will be the first of the worlds seven wonders. .