inhabitants of the American Commonwealth dwell in cities, these urban centres possess even more than one-third of the wealth of the nation, and far more than one-third of its actual power. A writer in one of the recent American magazines points out that the wealth of the Great Ten in 1890 exceeded the wealth of the whole country, cities included, in 1850. The revenue of the same Great Ten amounted in 1890 to £25,000,000 per annum, a greater sum than was raised for State purposes in all the federated States and Territories. The annual Budget of New York and Brooklyn in 1890 dealt with ten millions sterling, a sum almost exactly equalling the Budget of the United States forty years ago.

It is now half a century since De Tocqueville wrote:—“I look upon the size of certain American cities, and especially upon the nature of their population, as a real danger which threatens the security of the Republic.” Since then this “real danger” has gone on increasing at an ever accelerating ratio. When De Tocqueville wrote, there were only three or four cities with a population over 100,000. To-day there are thirty. And most remarkable fact of all, the population of Greater New York is now equal in number to the total population of the United States at the time of the Declaration of Independence. Her 3,200,000 inhabitants exceed nearly four-fold the total number of the inhabitants in all the cities in the States at the time De Tocqueville visited America. In the State of New York, sixty per cent, of the inhabitants live in cities; in Massachusetts, seventy per cent.

This tendency townwards, which is one of the most striking characteristics of the English-speaking race all round the world, is nowhere more conspicuous than in the United States; and New York, of all American cities, is that where this centripetal law is just now seen to be operating most powerfully. In the amalgamation by which the Greater New York has come into being we have the latest manifestation of the craving on the part of all modern men to come together in ever-increasing agglomerations of humanity. The fissiparous tendency so perceptible in politics is not visible in cities. There are numerous instances of two cities fusing into one; but no city having once achieved its unity splits it up. Amalgamation, not separation, is the order of the day. Where a river does not divide—as for instance, in the case of Gateshead, that “long, narrow, dirty lane leading into Newcastle-on-Tyne,” or in the case of Salford—the larger town invariably swallows up its minor neighbours, as a large raindrop on the window-pane attracts the smaller drops in its immediate vicinity. In the case of Greater New York, not even the dividing river has been able to prevent the law of gravitation doing its will.

The City of New York is indeed seated upon rivers, and if State boundaries had not stood in the way, there is little doubt that Jersey City would have shared the fate of Brooklyn and Long Island. But even without Jersey City, the new urban conglomerate will be the second city of the world in populousness and greater even than London in area.

The City of New York has an area of 39 square miles, while the area of Greater New York is over 300 square miles. Brooklyn contains 29 square miles, Staten Island comprises nearly 60 square miles, Westchester County annex has an area of about 20 square miles, and the Long Island townships included in the scheme have an aggregate extent of perhaps 170 miles.

At the first election for the Greater New York, held this year, no fewer than 567,000 citizens were registered as electors in this colossal constituency. The Greater New York charter divides the city into five boroughs. (1) Manhattan, consisting of the island of Manhattan, and the outlying islands naturally related to it. (2) The Bronx, including all that part of the present City of New York lying north of the Harlem, a territory which comprises two-thirds of the area of the present City of New York. (3) Brooklyn. (4) Queen’s, consisting of that portion of Queen’s County which is incorporated into the Greater New York. (5) Richmond; that is, Staten Island. The population of the City of New York which before the amalgamation was close on 2,000,000, is now swollen to 3,200,000, of whom nearly 2,000,000 live in tenement houses.

The size of New York is by no means its most notable distinction. Chicago some day may, by right of its more central position, win the prize of being recognised as the real if not the political capital of the United States. But the position to which Chicago aspires has, for nearly a century, been held by New York. For New York is one of the few cities in the States which are not of yesterday. Of course, compared with London, which dates back to the Cæsars, New York is but a mushroom upstart. But as in the realm of the blind the one-eyed man is king, so in the New World a city which can count its history by centuries may be regarded as possessing quite a respectable antiquity.