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13
Even they who are little accustomed to indulge in speculation
in regard to the economic movements of the times, begin
to suspect that all is not well in our social arrangements.
They discover in the encroachments of the builder the divorce
of the child from the physical culture of the playground, and
recognise with anxiety the inevitable sequence in the march
of events, that the street, with all the accompanying dangers,
both of vice and accident, must eventually become the only
place of recreation both for childhood and youth. The overcrowding
at the centres of population, and the poverty and
disease attendant upon that condition arc subjects which
give rise to apprehensions and misgivings in regard to the
reality of the boasted advance in our progress and civilization.
Throughout England and W ales the distribution of population,
which for centuries had remained fairly constant,
within recent years has undergone a remarkable change.
The displacement of large sections from rural to urban
districts has led to a complete revolution in the social
condition of the people.
At this time two-thirds of the population of Great Britain
live in towns. Annually this section is augmented by the
addition to its number of over a quarter of a million. The
figures of the Registrar General place this matter beyond
the region of dispute. In extra urban districts the excess in
the number of the births over that of the deaths is considerable.
But that increment is more than neutralized by migration.
A stream fed by rivulets from every village and hamlet
flows constantly towards the town. Within the space of a
few years, unless the current be retarded, the population of the
country compared with that of the town must sink into fractional
insignificance. The people of England are approaching
that condition when as a race they are destined to become
the dwellers in towns.