Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 42.djvu/653

Rh of them contain more or less rural population, while many of the less populous are purely rural. An accurate idea of the relative rates of growth of the different grades of places can therefore be obtained only by excluding the cities and towns of the New Eng-land States from the comparison. In the following table, the cities, towns, and villages of the country are classified according to the number of their inhabitants in 1890; the number of each class in 1890 is given, together with the aggregate population in 1890 and 1880 of the cities which in 1890 were in each class, the increase during the decade, and the percentage of that increase. In the column to the extreme right is given the percentage of increase of each class of cities, exclusive of those in the New England States:

From the above table it appears that, as a rule, the cities which now have a quarter of a million or more inhabitants have not increased during the decade as rapidly as those having a smaller population. The difference would have been even much more marked than it is, if it had not been for the wonderful growth of Chicago. The ten cities, outside of New England, with more than a quarter of a million inhabitants each, have gained at the rate of 40"28 per cent during the decade, while the rate of increase in the 2,881 cities, towns, and villages having in 1890 from 1,000 to 250,000 inhabitants each, averaged 60.19 per cent, or nearly one half greater. Among the various classes of cities included in these 2,881 places, there was during the decade no important difference in the rapidity of growth perceptible, although, on the whole, the places with from 20,000 to 250,000 grew slightly, but only slightly, more rapidly than those having less than 20,000. Although the smaller cities considered together have grown as rapidly as have the larger, the difference among the respective