POLITICAL AND COMMERCIAL ASPECTS. The city has always been the emt•e of commercial and industrial development, but its origin is to he found among agricultural peoples, who possessed the fertile lands and built themselves, walled towns, or took possession of some naturally forti fied places, such as the Acropolis of Athens, in order to protect themselves from the attacks of the predatory tribes. Within the city. handi craft, exchange, and various industries grew lip. Babylon and Egypt were full of these small com munities, now buried beneath the sand. They were situated on rivers and the seacoast. and soon became centres of commerce. Large cities were a prominent feature of the ancient mold; Thebes, Babylon, Nineveh, Susa, Tyre, Car thage, and Jerusalem were great centres. Greece, for its extent and population, had many large cities. Alexandria is said to have contained over 500,000, and Rome was still larger. As capital of the Empire of the East, Constantinople suc ceeded Rome as the principal city in Europe. Civilization was associated with city life, as was illustrated by the use of the word 'pagan' (Lat. pagau us, dweller in a country district, where heathenism often survived much longer than in the city). In the Mohammedan East, during part of the Middle Ages, Bagdad, Damascus, and Cairo led in population, while Cordova was the greatest city of the Sloliammedan West and for a time of all Europe. Compact cities grew up in the Sliddle Ages in nearly every European country. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Europe had six or seven cities numbering 100.000; at the end, thirteen or fourteen. During the seventeenth century, while civil war prevailed, although the population of Europe remained stationary, the cities increased. The total population increased greatly in the eighteenth century.
A remarkable fact of the nineteenth century has been the constant increase in urban life at the expense of the rural districts. Cities have grown absolutely and proportionally in respect to the total population. This is almost universally
true. .Naples. Budapest, Athens, Bn•ha•est. 'Rus sian cities, South merican cities, and even Jeru salem, Cairo, and Damascus may be included. The tendency toward city life is noticeable in agri cultural Australia. England was the first coun try to recognize the new grouping of population, and to adopt means to meet its dangers. The sea ports and cathedral and country towns were sud denly left far behind by the new manufacturing towns, 111:111y of which had no corporate existence in 1335. In 1851, 50.03 per cent. of England's population was urban; in 1891, 72.05 per cent. In Scotland the change has liven revolutionary. In 1301. of the 1.000,000 inhabitants, few' resided in towns; in 1391, out of over four million. only 925,500 were strictly rural. Almost the entire in crease of population in France within the last half-century has been in the cities. In 1891,37.4 per cent, of the people were found in cities, while the rural population had actually decreased. The recent growth of the German cities is almost un exampled. Forty-seven per cent. of the pop ulation now live under urban conditions. The tendency toward city life is especially marked in Prussia and Saxony. Statistics fur other Conti nental countries are equally interesting. In the United States a diffusion of the population would have seemed natural; lint urban tendencies are becoming stronger, as will appear front the fol lowing table: Noticeable phenomena are the growth in the number of cities in agricultural States, such as Kansas and Nebraska, and along the Pacific Coast, and the remarkable increase from 188,0 to 1890. The census of 1900 shows that an increase has taken place in the South-Central and Western States: that the North-Atlantic and North-Cen tral States still contain four-fifths of the urban elements—a few States having over two-thirds of their population in cities: and that, since 1590, the percentage of urban increase has been 16 per cent. greater than that of the total population.