Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 March 1894 — TOPICS OF THESE TIMES. [ARTICLE]

TOPICS OF THESE TIMES.

‘ LIGHTS O* LONDON," --- The phenomenal growth of LonJon, England, is one of the marvels of the nineteenth century. Official statistics show that for the decennial census period prior to 1891 the rate of increase of population had varied from 16 to 21 per cent., but in 1891 this rate fell to 10 per cent. Authorities agree that the rate of increase can not fall below this per cent, unless some great calamity or pestilence should intervene, and the probabilities are that the rate of increase will much exceed that figure. But even with a ten per cent, increase the estimates place the population of the greatest city the world has ever known in the year 1941, or less than fifty years ahead, at 90,000,000 souls’. Such figures are enough to frighten all' who love their fellow men, for few Will contend that the overcrowded metropolis can by anyhuman power be made more desirable as a place of residence than it is to-day, while the natural tendency must rather be toward'an increase of its evil influences and a decrease of all the refining and elevating elements that at present make it tolerable for civilized man. The problem presented for the government and regulation pf such a gigantic municipality are enough to stagger tLe ablest statesmen, and unless Providence shall intervene they must be met by men already , born. The future of the world’s metropolis can not be said to be flatering or assuring. The fearful congestion that i§ setting in upon, the,' storied. Thames must be (reduced,j.qr want and woe and tragedies yet un-, dreamed of will surely come to cool the throbbing fever tide of an' overcrowded population’ that human telligence has failed to stay or-even regulate. r . \ 5 -. h'