THE GROWTH OF TOWNS IN FRANCE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 3026, 16 January 1879, Page 2

THE GROWTH OF TOWNS IN FRANCE.

[ From the census of Insfc year it appears rlmfc, exclusive of Pan's, there areeiifhfc ro.vna in Franco with populations exceeding 100.000, three with more than •200,000, aud two vvirh over 300,000. Of theso, Lyons. heads the list with 0-12,800 inhabitants ; Marseilles comes next with 3LB/J00; and then in order Bordeaux, Liile, Toulouse, Sainthjtienno, Nantes; Rouen bein^ last with only 104,900. These Glares, it will be nn-ler-itood, r"e r er only to tho towns proper, which often, as n the case with ourselves, include only a portion of wfiafc ■8 popularly understood hy tho names. Tims a report from the Chamber of Commerce of Lyons to the Minister of Ahfriciilture ami Commerce a fow weeks aijo esti'iiatucl tho tot.tl number of looms employed in' the Lyons silk naniifjjutiire at between IK/.000 and 120,000, but of thW> only 28.000 or 30,000 are found within the boundaries

of iht- city Tho :,Teat majority of the nianufHeturinjj population is tboadomiciVd outside Lyons proper Of thn eitjlit towns, St. ivti'Mine has grown and is growing with the greatest, rapidity. At the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789 St. Elienne contained only 9000 souls ; in 18Jj6 these had multiplied to 42,000 ; but in the following five years they decreased to 36.000 ; in 18'i6 they had el-own to 97,000, in 1872 to 110,000, aud last year to 126,000. In the eighty-seven years the population of the town had therefore been multiplied fourteen times ; it had been more than trebled since 1851 ; it increased 13 4 per cfiit between 1866 and 1872, in spite of the war; and iv the following four years it augmented at the rate ot 1-i 5 per ceut. Lille grew next most rapidly, from 13.000 in 1789 to 162.700 lost year. Its population was therefore multiplied twelve and a half ti • r-. The population of Marseilles ha- ijeeti multiplied four timos add over, and ihifc of Lyons between two and

tliic j « time-s. On tho ot-ber hand, the pn|U'ation of neithf r Ronen nor Nantes has d'Hihled since 1789, the growth in Rouen bointf slackest of all. Taking the ai^yretfate population of the ei^ht towns, it is found to hax'e trebled in the eiifhty-seven yea»*s. It now amounts to 1,521,400. Adding that of Paris, we may say lhat in round numbers nine French cilies contain three millions and a half of people, or almost one-tenth of the whole population of France. EVom what has now been said, it will be seen that the population of the towns i 9 increasing much more rapidly than that of the country. Indeed, as the population of the whole of France has littte more than kept its ground for a considerable time back, it is evident that the strictly rural population must he decreasing, while, as we see, that of the larjrH towns at any rate is rapidly augnipntiu;?. Thus, it appears, that, in spite of peasant proprietorship, and in spite of the facility with which small holdings of land can be acquired, the same tendency to mass tie population in great centres of industry 13 beginning to be observable in France as in other commercial countries. The tendency is far less developed than in this country, far le-s even than, in the older States of tho American Union — in New York, for esanple, where half the population of the State is contained in twenty-four cities, and more than three-quarters of the assessed value of the property. Yet with the forces which are acting iv those countries a-o al.<o in operation in France, and are bringing about the same result. Every advance in industrial development attracts fresh recruits from tho country to the towns. -Pall Mall Gazette.