Some remarkable facts are disclosed in the "Appeal from South
London Incumbents to the English Church," published in the Times of Monday. South London, which now numbers nearly two million inhabitants, is advancing in population at very nearly double the rate (twenty-six thousand to fourteen thousand per annum) of London north of the Thames. The memorialists quote Sir Walter Besant's striking words: —" It is a city without a municipality, without a centre, without a civic history. It has no University. It has no colleges apart from medicine. Its residents have no local patriotism or enthusiasm. It has no clubs. It has no public buildings. It has no West End." They go on to show that as a field for missionary endeavour South London is more truly heathen than any part of India, and they appeal, above all, for additional personal service—lay as well as clerical—to combat the evils of the situation. The appeal is signed by fifteen incumbents, with parish populations ranging from ten thousand to thirty thousand, and has the full sanction and approval of the Bishop of Rochester.
Previous page
