We will unpack our trunks and sleep for a night before we go into the streets of London to see the metropolis of the Empire.
LECTURE II.
LONDON, THE IMPERIAL CITY.
1.
Areas of India and the British Isles compared.
Before we set out through the largest and most populous city of the world, let us consider what it is that we are going to look at. Let us try to understand the size of the United Kingdom and of London by comparing them with India and its chief cities. First we have a map showing the area of the British Isles compared with the area of India. We see that the British Isles are small as compared with India; but they have a far more dense population. There are more than twice as many people to the square mile in the United Kingdom than there are in India. This is due to the fact that the people of India live for the most part in villages, whereas in the United Kingdom the majority of the people live in the cities. In India only about ten per cent. of the whole population live in towns with more than five thousand inhabitants.
2.
Populations of London, Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Delhi, Rangoon, and Karachi compared.
Now let us compare the populations of our chief Indian cities with that of London. We have here circles which represent by their areas the population of London on the one hand, and on the other hand of Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Delhi, Rangoon, and Karachi. We see at a glance that London has a population greater than the combined population of all these great cities.