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Show POPULATION OF CITIES ' SHOW ODD PROPORTIONS ! i A current item afloat in he newspapers news-papers is that statistics of the Census Bureau show that the twenty largest ; cities of the country with their suburbs, . contain 21.000,000 ol the population, or ' about tvr-ninths of the total, and the comment is made that "Ihegreat cities and their suburbs between them seem to be destined to swallow up most of j t'ne country's population." j This statement, however is an exag- , geration, and the deduction from it is , futile. The twenty largest cities of the country contain less than 1', 000, 000 j population. There are three cities of the Union with more than a million population, pop-ulation, New York with -l,70(3,8i3, Chi- j cago with 2,1S3,2S3, and Philadelphia with 1,546,008. The population of these three cities aggregates 8,501,171. 1 There are two cities of upwards of 600, 000; St. Louis with eS7,029, anil Boston with 670,585. Three cities range over 500,0i)0, three over 400,000, and seven over 300,000. The eighteen total 15,201, 774. Add the two next largest, 267,779 and 248,381, respectively, and we have a population of 15,720.934 for the twenty twen-ty largest cities in the coimtry, which is one sixth of the total population in place of two-ninths, and a difference of over 5,900, OUU. '' We must take note that the call of the cities upon the g. neral population of the country is because the cities concentrate con-centrate in themselves immense energies, ener-gies, industries, and work done and to be done. Wo cannot forget, either, that the present tendency by reason of the high price of farm products is ' back to the soil, " so that we do not see anything alarming in the growth of city population in the United States. The city population doubtless does better bet-ter in the cities than it could do elsewhere. else-where. Just as soon as the fact be- j comes fixed that the dwellers in cities could do better elsewhere, they will go elsewhere. The laws of supply and de- ! mand and of economic forces generally-can generally-can be depended upon to regulate matters mat-ters of this kind, and just now we si e a powerful incentive to the drawing a- ' way of population from the cities in the immensely-increased profits of agriculture, ag-riculture, fruit growing, and 'he pro-, duel ion of vegetable and dairy market j stuff. Just as soon as the population ! of the cities becomes too crowded and ; the advantages and profits of agricul- j ! tural life become known, there will be j an exodus from the cities eompared j with which the drift to the cities of the I past will appear small and of no account. 1 |