to the growth of towns.

To arrive at any useful result we must compare the inflow with the
outflow. Most of the valuable information we possess on this point
applies directly to London but the same forces which are operating in
London, will be found to be at work with more or less intensity in other
centres of population in proportion to their size. Comparing the inflow
of London with its outflow, we find that in 1881 nearly twice as many
strangers were living in London as Londoners were living outside; in
other words, that London was gaining from the country at the rate of
more than 10,000 per annum. So far as London itself is concerned, the
last two censuses show a cessation of the flow, but the enormous growth
of Middlesex outside the metropolitan boundaries indicates a continuance
of the centripetal tendency.

Now what does London do with this increase? Is it spread evenly over the
surface of the great city?

Certainly not. And here we reach a point which has a great significance
for those interested in East London. It is clearly shown that none of
this gain goes to swell the numbers of East London. Many individual
strangers of course go there, but the outflow from East London towards
the suburban parts more than compensates the inflow. By comparing the
population of East London in 1901 with that in 1881, it is found that
the increase is far less than it ought to be, if we add the excess of
births over deaths. How is this? The answer is not far to seek, and
stamps with fatal significance one aspect of Poverty, namely,
overcrowding. East London does not gain so fast as other parts, because
it will not hold any more people. It has reached what is termed
"saturation point." Introduce strangers, and they can only stay on
condition that they push out, and take the place of, earlier residents.

So we find in all districts of large towns, where poverty lies thickest,
the inflow is less than the outflow. The great stream of incomers goes
to swell the population of parts not hitherto overcrowded, thus ever
increasing the area of dense city population. Districts like Bethnal
Green and Mile End are found to show the smallest increase, while
outlying districts like West Ham grow at a prodigious pace.

Sec. 2. Rate of Migration from Rural Districts.--But perhaps the most
instructive point of view from which to regard the absorption of country
population by the towns is not from inside but from outside.

Confining our att