WHAT LONDON IS

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 73, 25 October 1884, Page 7

WHAT LONDON IS

The following 1 sketch . issued by the London City Mission, will be read with interest : — '' London is the greatest city the woild ever saw. Babylon, Thebes. Rome, were never so populous ; whilr I lie Invest city in India at the present time contains less than 1,000,000 inhabitants. Within the borders of Its metropolitan and police district* it is computed that there are at the present time more than four and a half millions of souls London is four times more populous than Washington, seven times more populous than St. Petersburg", nearly two and a half times more populous than Paris, moie than four times as populous as Berlin, and nearly five times as populous , its tu© threat city of Pekin. xVll {Scotland does not equal it in the number of its people, and the inhabitants? of nine Liverpools or 40 Brighton-? would find accommodation within its boundaries. Every t five minutes a soul goes out of London t:> account before the Great Judge ; and every three minutes a new immortal enters upon this s^ene of its probation. Tue extent of i's territory is never the same from year to year. Measuring within the 15 miles radius of this nrs Sons operation-, nearly 700squatv miles, excy year new suburbs arise comprising in all some 2 1,000 new houses and 90,0011 additional inhabitiuts, <>r 2 (•(> personeveryday. It is sit once the court, the seat of the Government, the centre of fashion, the home of all the charities, and the general rendezvous of all the criminal an I despeiate classes of the? kingdom (>n«* bun I red thousand winter tramps, 40,000 ' costers,' an almost equal nuui ber of p iupeiN in our unions, more Jew? than are to l>e found iv all Palestine, as m.my Roman Catholics as aiv to be found in Ro ue itself, with a criminal class that would people several of our Parliamentary boroughs, aw tit the zeal of many a n w apostle. ' T.ie clergy,' is t\m general cry, 'are utterly underhanded. T ley ca'inot reach the mulutu le who are n •minally committed to them.' Fifteen nuiiilre I new Churches, it is estimated, are required to b'ing up the provision for public worship to the present neivs- i shies of the p< pulafnn. But to build , these, we are told on the first authority, in many parts of London, and those most wanting; churches, the site for a ; churcii will cost as much as the church itself ; and that before a brick is laid £5000 or £6000 must be given for the land to lay it on. Even at the hw average cost of £(1000 for church land and a sum of £9,000,000 would be required i for these 1500 churches. And then 50 new churches must be added every year if we could keep pace with the enormous progress of tie population, while the actnal average addition is not half that number. Surely the claims of London appeal to every (vhristian mm I throughout the country."