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8

MR. A. W. FLUX, M.A., ON CITY GOVERNMENT AND

The strong tide of immigration which is shown by the figures given for Copenhagen during the years 1870-1885 contrasts both with the rate of growth shown befare and with that since manifested. There has been no change in area, as has been the case with Manchester; but there have grown up, not merely in the less central parts of Copenhagen itself, but beyond its boundaries, populous suburbs, one of which forms in reality as integral a part of the population-aggregate we call Copenhagen as do Salford or Moss Side of the population-aggregate known to strangers as Manchester. The transition from Copenhagen to Frederiksberg is not more plainly marked in the aspect of the streets and surroundings than the passage from Manchester to Moss Side. The suburbs beyond the city boundaries of Copen­ hagen now number a population which cannot be far short of one-quarter of that of Copenhagen itself. The question of absorbing soine of these smaller suburban districts is at present being discussed in Copenhagen, as is a similar question here regarding the relation of Manchester to some of the outlying districts. Housing .— The mode of housing the people, as in so many Continental centres, differs widely from that common in England. The block-dwelling does not, however, present.always the same aspect, and flåts are not quite the same institution wherever met with. It has been realised in Manchester that in the circum- stances of town life, cheap and flimsy erections become rapidly a danger, from the sanitary point of view, to the city. Sub- stantial buddings are possible, even on valuable sites, if they can be made to house large numbers. Overcrowding is an evil, even if the crowded dwellings be of but one or two storeys in height, and does not cease to be an evil if the dwellings are piled one on the top of another in a huge barrack. But some of the associated evils are more easily held under control in the latter case. The deputy, who supervises the owner’s interests in a barrack-dwelling, may also be made to talte, as the owner’s representative, certain responsibilities which, in the interests of the eommunity, the owner ought to bear, and which are, I fear,