THE GREATEST CITY IN THE WORLD.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1223, 7 August 1885, Page 3

THE GREATEST CITY IN THE WORLD.

London is the greatest city the world ever saw. It covers within the fifteen mines’ radius of Charing Cross 700 square miles It numbers within thieo boundaries 5,000,000 of inhabitants. It comprises over 2,000,000 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 Dublin ; more Scotchmen than Ed in* burgh ; more Welshmen than Cardiff; more country raised persons than the comities of Devon, Warwickshire, and Durham combined. London lias a birth in it every five minutes; has a death iu it every eight minutes; has seven accidents every day in its 8000 miles of streets ; lias on an average 40 miles of streets opened and 15,000 new houses built ever. year. In 1883 there were added 22,110 new houses to the vast aggregate of dwellings which is called the metropolis, thus forming 368 new streets and one new square, corering a distance of 66 miles and 84 yards. It is difficult to form any mental picture from these figures.

Brighton, the queen of watering places, in 1881 had 20,379 inhabited houses, so that London in 1883 added to itself a town bigger than Brighton. It would require two Cambridges, or Oxfords, or Baths to represent the addition made to London in a single year. London has 46,000 persons annually added, by birth, to its population ; has over 1000 ships and 10,000 sailors in its port every day; has as many beer shops and gin palaces as would, if placed side by side, stretch from Charing Cross to Portsmouth, a distance of 78 miles; has 38,000 drunkards annually brought before its magistrates; has7o miles of open shoos every Sunday; has influence with all parts of the world represented by a yearly delivery in its postal districts of 298,000,000 letters. Twelve hundred trains pass Clapham Junction every day, and the underground railway runs 1211 trains every day. The London omnibus companies 1020 buses, which carry 56,000,000 passengers annually. It is more dangerous to walk the streets of London than to travel by railroad or to cross the Atlantic. Last year 130 persons were killed and 2000 injured by vehi cles in the streets There are in London nearly 14,000 police, 14,000 cabmen, and 15,000 persons connected with the post-office. The cost of gas for lighting London annually is L 600,000. London has 408 daily and weekly newspapers. Last year there were 2300 fires. The ancient and famous city of London was first founded by Brute, the Trojan, in the year of the world 2832, so that since the first building it is 3006 years old. The drainage svstem of London is superb, and the death rate very low.