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TO THE
VESTRY OF ST, MARY, ISLINGTON,
Gentlemen,—
The population of Islington in 1885 may be taken as 318,038.
In 1875 it was 244,680; in 18G5 about 170,000. In other words, the
population of Islington has nearly doubled in twenty years.
The death rate of 1885 in Islington was 16.7. It is the smallest
death-rate on record.
Very pregnant facts these. I pray you, consider them for a
moment. Startling enough on a small scale, such details become
matters for anxiety when we consider them, not as Islingtonians, but
as Englishmen.
Put the population of England (England and Wales) at
24,000,000, and the acreage of cultivated land at 30,000,000. This
gives one person to 125 acres—about one-fourth the quantity of land
per head of the population in the whole of Europe. But the
population is increasing. Statistics show that every 10,000 people
at the commencement of a year become 10,150 at its close. About
twenty generations have passed since the Norman Conquest.
What will be the result when twenty more generations of Englishmen
are numbered amongst the dead and gone ? Why, a population
of 27,220,000,000, requiring a place of abode, which, to be no more
populous than we are at the present moment, would need twenty
earths for their habitation. What when only seven generations, say
294 years ? A population of English people greater in number than the
world contains at the present time.
But, you say, why trouble about what will be the result when
twenty, or even when seven generations have passed ? The increase of
the population has been startling in its suddenness. In the reign of
Henry VIII. the population of England, kept in check by wars and
pestilence, numbered not more than 5,000,000, whilst in the early part of
the reign of George III. it was about 7,500,000. Commercial supremacy,
our minerals and our manufactures, made us rich. With richness
came numbers. The population of England reached 10 or 11 millions