ghe §6)p er t tot," October 27, 1849
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THE. Parliamentary Paper No. 614 forcibly calls for reflection on the good and evil likely to ensue from the rapid increase of the capital of the empire. . . . It may be thought that London cannot grow too big): that it may continue spreading round eternally, like the famed banyan: tree of the East, every expansion of whose widening circuit yields grateful. shade and shelter ; or that, as the empire itself has acquired greyness by adding colony to colony and dependency to dependency, so may its capital progress, eating up hamlet after hamlet, vill after vill, and parish; after parish unstintedly. But this would be a delusive forecast of the destiny of the modern Babylon. Like all great consolidations of power, the British capital contains within itself the germs of disintegration., That the living streams which daily flood into the City have become too numerous and swollen for it to receive is a fact patent to all observers. .. .1 Neither the population nor trade of London is likely to diminish, bull largely to augment for years, probably ages to come. The world is only jus4 entering with unanimity of impulse on the first stages of peaceful develop--; meat. From the natural growth of the inland trade of the country, from the increase of foreign trade by the progress of industry and capital vast accessions must accrue to the crowd and traffic of the capital, for which accommodation must be provided. Neither subways below the streets nor atmospheric ways above them would be adequate to meet the contingency%
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