Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 April 1879 — LONDON. [ARTICLE]

LONDON.

Statistics of the Great Metropolis. From the computations of authorities, it appears that London (with ail its suburbs) covers within the 15 miles’ radius of Charing Cross nearly 700 square miles. It numbers within these boundaries over 4,000,000 inhabitants. It contains more country-born persons than the counties of Devon and Gloucester combined, or 37 per cent, of its entire population. Every four minutes a birth takes place in the metropolis, and every six minutes a death. Within the circle already named there are added to the population 205 persons every day, and 75,000 annually. London has 7,000 miles of streets, and on an average 28 miles of new streets are opened and 9,000 new houses built, every year. One thousand vessels and nine thousand sailors are in its ports every day. Its crime is also in proportion to its extent. Seventy-three thousand persons are annually taken into custody by the police, and more than one-third of all the crime in the country is committed within its borders. Thirty-eight thousand persons are annually committed for drunkenness by its magistrates. The metropolis comprises considerably upward of 100,000 foreigners from every quarter of the globe. It contains more Roman Catholics than Rome itself, more Jews than the whole of Palestine, more Irish than Belfast, more Scotchmen than Aberdeen, and more Welshmen than Cardiff. Its beer shops and gin palaces are so numerous that their frontage, if placed side by side, would stretch from Charing Cross to Chichester, a distance of 62 miles. If all the dwellings in London could thus have their frontages placed side by side, they would extend beyond the city of York. London has sufficient paupers to occupy every house in Brighton. The society which advocates the cessation of Sunday labor will be astonished to learn that 60 miles of shops are open every Sunday. With regard to churches and chapels, the Bishop of London, examined before a committee of the House of Lords in the year 1840, said: “If you proceed a mile or two eastward of St Paul’s, you will find yourself in the midst of a population the most wretched and destitute of mankind, consisting of artificers, laborers, beggars and thieves, to the amount of 300,000 or 400,000 souls. Throughout this entire quarter there is not more than one church for every 10,000 inhabitants; and in two districts there is but one church for 45,000 souls.” In 1839, Lord John Russell stated, in Parliament, that London, with 34 parishes and a population of 1,170,000, had church accommodation for only 101,000. These and other statistics furnished led to the “ Metropolis Churches Fund,” established in 1836, which has been followed by the Bishop of London’s Fund. It is still computed, however, that at least 1,000 new churches and chapels are required in the metropolis.