London’s Growth and Contrasts
VERY few towns or cities have made such wonderful growth and progress as London, the metropolis of the world. A century ago there had never been a census. The city then lay between Hyde Park corner and Poplar, with a length of about seven miles and an average width of one and one-half to two miles. In 1801 the first census was taken, showing a population of 880,000. In 1841 it had a population of 1,870,000. Now greater London has an area of 700 square miles, ordinary London, 120 square miles. The population of the latter is no less than 4,351,738. It has diminished its death rate by sanitary regulations till it is well up among the cities of the world, from a health stand-point. It is the great city of the world. Great in piety, great in sin; great in wealth, great in poverty; great in extremes of all kinds, which make one long for that continuing city "whose builder and whose maker is God."