42 



the action of French engineers, the length of life of each inhabitant 

 has, on an average, been doubled. The question, then, very naturally 

 occurs : What are the causes and conditions of this amelioration? and 

 Can it be expected to continue ? 



REASON FOR ANTICIPATING AN ACCELERATED ENLARGEMENT OP 

 METROPOLITAN TOWNS. 



If the enormous advance in the population of great towns which has 

 been characteristic of our period of civilization, is due mainly to the 

 increase of facilities for communication, transportation and exchange 

 throughout the world, as there is every reason to believe that it is, 

 we can but anticipate, in the immediate future, a still more rapid move- 

 ment in the same direction. 



We are now extending railroads over this continent at the rate of 

 more than fifteen hundred miles a year, and before our next President 

 takes his seat, we shall have applied an amount of labor which is 

 represented by the enormous sum of two thousand millions of dol- 

 lars, to this work, most of it preparatory, and more than half of it 

 directed to the opening up of new lands to profitable cultivation. The 

 productive capacity of the country thus laid open, and the demand 

 upon commerce of its people, has scarcely yet begun to be manifested. 

 We have but half made our first road to the Pacific, and we have only 

 within a year begun to extend our steam navigation to Japan and 

 China, where the demands upon civilized commerce of a frugal and in- 

 dustrious population, much larger than that of all Christendom, yet 

 remain to be developed. We are ourselves but just awake to the value 

 of the electric telegraph in lessening the risks of trade on a large scale, 

 and giving it order and system. Thus, we seem to be just preparing to 

 enter upon a new chapter of commercial and social progress, in which 

 a comprehension of the advantages that arise from combination and 

 co-operation will be the rule among merchants, and not, as heretofore, 

 the exception. 



CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH THE EVILS OF LARGE TOWNS HAVE 



DIMINISHED. 



The rapid enlargement of great towns which has hitherto occurred, 

 must then be regarded as merely a premonition of the vastly greater 

 enlargement that is to come. We see, therefore, how imperative, 

 with reference to the interests of our race, is this question, Avhether 

 as the enlargement of towns goes on the law of improvement is such 

 that we may reasonably hope that life in them will continue to grow 

 better, more orderly, more healthy ? One thing seems to be cer- 

 tain, that the gain hitherto can be justly ascribed in very small 



