A History of Modern Europe - From the Renaissance to the Present

Social Change 769

ond Industrial Revolution.

The cost of all these pro­
jects was enormous and far
exceeded original esti­
mates. Speculators made a
fortune, tipped off as to
where the next demolitions
would take place.
Paris had already reached
well over a million inhabi­
tants. By 1900, nine Euro­
pean cities had populations
that large. London dwarfed
them all, growing from 1.9
million in 1841 to 4.2 mil­
lion in 1891. Between one­
fifth and one-sixth of the
population of Britain lived
in London, which was
er than the next seven
largest English cities and
Edinburgh combined. The
sprawling imperial city seemed almost ungovernable, an imposing labyrinth
of different jurisdictions with 10,000 people exercising varying degrees of
authority. Unlike Paris, which was for the most part administered by the
centralized French state, London only had an effective local government
after the establishment of the London City Council in 1889.
The largest port in the world, London also remained a center of interna­
tional banking, finance, and commerce, and the administrative nerve cen­
ter of the British Empire. The influence of “the City”—London’s banking
and finance district—extended around the world, channeling investment
capital to innumerable countries within and beyond the empire. Half the
capital that left Europe passed through London. The largest merchant
marine fleet in the world carried woolens and other textiles to China,
machine parts and hardware to Russia, toys to New York, settlers to
Canada, and soldiers and sailors to India, and it imported Australian wool,
Chicago beef, Bordeaux wines, Portuguese port, and Cuban cigars.
London was also a center of small-scale production and finishing in
shops usually employing only a few skilled and semiskilled workers each,
such as in the clothing industry, furniture making, engineering, and print­
ing. The bustling East End docks employed a vast force of “casual labor”—
that is, semiskilled and unskilled laborers who worked when work could be
found. Two million people lived in the East End. There, and elsewhere, the
homeless slept where they could, in empty or half-collapsed buildings,
under bridges and railroad viaducts. To upper-class Londoners, the East

Paris before Haussmann: Charles Marville's pho­

tograph of the Rue Traversine. Notice the drainage

ditch in the center of the cobblestone street.