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rural centres. Mankind were drawn to the cities by an overwhelming
attraction. The demand for labour fell with the increase of machinery,
the local markets were entirely superseded, and there was a rapid growth
of the larger centres at the expense of the open country.
The flow of population townward was the constant preoccupation of
Victorian writers. In Great Britain and New England, in India and China,
the same thing was remarked: everywhere a few swollen towns were visibly
replacing the ancient order. That this was an inevitable result of
improved means of travel and transport--that, given swift means of
transit, these things must be--was realised by few; and the most puerile
schemes were devised to overcome the mysterious magnetism of the urban
centres, and keep the people on the land.
Yet the developments of the nineteenth century were only the dawning of
the new order. The first great cities of the new time were horribly
inconvenient, darkened by smoky fogs, insanitary and noisy; but the
discovery of new methods of building, new methods of heating, changed
all this. Between 1900 and 2000 the march of change was still more
rapid; and between 2000 and 2100 the continually accelerated progress of
human invention made the reign of Victoria the Good seem at last an
almost incredible vision of idyllic tranquil days.
The introduction of railways was only the first step in that development
of those means of locomotion which finally revolutionised human life. By
the year 2000 railways and roads had vanished together. The railways,
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