London as It Is | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 9, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 35.

London as It Is.

WHAT a constant marvel and enigma is a great city! The facts that are appearing in regard to London almost stagger imagination and challenge belief, but they are the sober figures of cold calculation. The original city within its wall comprised only 370 acres, and was wholly included in the county of Middlesex. It now has spread until its area covers 75,362 acres, extending into three counties, and including 122 square miles, being equal to a square having about eleven miles on each side. Within this area, by the census of 1881, there were more than 486,000 inhabited houses, each occupied by 7.8 persons, and the population was then 3,814,571, which has since increased to at least 4,000,000.

Every year the births in London out-numbered the deaths by more than 1,000 a week, so that the natural yearly increase is 52,500. A low estimate of the immigration from the country and abroad is 65,000 a year. With all the accumulation of this immense population, there are less than twenty deaths out of every 1,000 persons, showing that London is a remarkably healthy city, only three of the twenty-eight largest towns in the kingdom being more so. Last year, indeed, the death rate was the lowest on record. In connection with this, the fact is also stated that the marriage rate was then the lowest, showing the hardness of the times and the difficulty of getting a livelihood.

These bare statistics of the size and growth of London are amazing. But still more so would be the facts, could they be as readily computed, of its immense influence on the financial, social and religious enterprises of the civilized world.—Star and Crown.