STATISTICS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. 437 



to a square mile is greater than in any other European country of the same 

 extent.* 



The population of the towns increases at a much more rapid rate than that 

 of the rural districts. This is the case in all commercial and manufacturing 

 countries, but nowhere else in Europe is the discrepancy so great as in England 

 and Scotland, The dwellers in towns have long outnumbered the rural popu- 

 lation of Great Britain, for out of 9 inhabitants 5 live in towns, and the 

 difference between the two is annually increasing. London alone includes the 

 fifth part of the population of England, and Glasgow occupies a similar posi- 

 tion with reference to Scotland. A time may come when the villages will be 

 superseded by agricultural factories and clusters of huge dwelling-houses, 

 as dependencies of the towns in their neighbourhood. The tiller of the soil is 

 fast being turned into a factory labourer, who readily changes his abode 

 according to the necessities of his work, and the number of citizens who 

 annually spend a few weeks or months in the country, whilst still keeping their 

 ordinary place of business in the towns, is annually increasing. Quite irre- 

 spective of the forcible ejection by greedy landlords of the inhabitants of entire 

 hamlets, there are not wanting villages which have become depopulated in the 

 course of the last generation. In the Scotch Highlands, in certain agricultural 

 counties of England, and even in Ireland the migration of the agricultural 

 population towards the great manufacturing towns has assumed such proportion 

 as to lead to a decrease of the population far greater than could be made up by 

 an excess of births over deaths. In reality the fecundity of marriages is pretty 

 much the same throughout the country, yet in the south-west and in other agri- 

 cultural counties of England the population increases but slowly, if it does not 

 decrease, whilst in London and the great manufacturing districts in the north 

 the increase is astounding. f The inquiries as to the birthplaces of the people 

 which have been made show very conclusively that the great centres of commerce 

 and industry do not so much draw towards them the inhabitants of smaller towns, 

 but that they exercise a most potent power of attraction upon their immediate 

 neighbourhood. The inhabitants of the country surrounding the town flock 

 into it, the gaps they leave are filled up by immigrants from more retired 

 country districts, and so on, until the attractive force of one of these rapidly 

 increasing cities makes its influence felt to the most remote corner of the king- 

 dom. + . Several counties, in which the number of factories is small, are more 



* Number of inhabitants to a square mile : — 

 England and Wales . . . 392 



Scotland 52 



Ireland 163 



British Isles .... 244 



France 180 



German Empire . . . 201 



Russia in Europe ... 34 



Belgium 469 



t Increase of the population of England, 1861 — 71 : — 



Northern counties . 23 per cent. I Midland counties . . 9 per cent. 



Yorkshire . . . 19 „ Eastern coimties , . 1 „ 



North-western counties 15 „ | South-western counties . 2 „ 



X Eavenstein, "The Birthplaces of the People and the Laws of Migration." London, 1876. 



