Reflections on the Increase of Town Populations. 



By C. E. Macnamara, Diplomate in State Medici7ie, &c., &c. 



[O those who can carry their minds back some 

 forty or fifty years, it seems almost a new 

 phase in education that many of the minor 

 sciences have become so general. Classes of persons 

 now discuss statistics and other dry topics, with a free- 

 dom which was quite unknown to the same class of 

 persons half a century ago. Thus we find the question 

 of population, the increase of its numbers, its prospe6ls, 

 resources and even destiny, are all familiar topics for 

 enlarging upon by ordinary journals and such literature 

 as seeks general popularity amongst the class which 

 makes up the majority of the people ; whilst the people no 

 longer look upon the statist as a scientific creature, 

 whose mania consists of the compilation of figures, with 

 their percentages and ratios, and the dedu6lion there- 

 from of theories tending to the consternation if not con- 

 fusion of the uninitiated. No, all this amongst many 

 other things has changed and now we find that the 

 comprehension of population as regards its number and 

 increase has during the present generation converted 

 itself from being a subjeft of more or less scientific 

 study, as it once was, to being, as it now is, a matter 

 upon which the general community keeps itself informed, 

 and the information and knowledge obtained probably 

 can be utilized far more to its own ultimate advan- 

 tage than the same might be in the hands of the statist 

 for scientific purposes alone, and so it comes about that 



