Note 116 — Chapter XI

“The ‘City’ has an area of less than one square mile. During the past fifty years the number of houses in the City have been reduced to 5,581, yet the value of the remainder has so increased that the present few outbid the former many. During the last ten years only, the annual value of the City has increased no less than a million and a-half sterling, or at the rate of 273 per cent. The 17,413 inhabited houses of 1811 had decreased to 13,431 in 1861, but the rental of 1811, which was £565,243, had increased to £2,109,935 in 1866. Therefore, the fewer houses of 1866 are worth more by £1,544,692 than the more numerous houses of 1811. The houses in the City were worth £32 per house, annual value in 1811. They are now worth £137 each, annual value. They were worth, to capitalise them at twenty-five years’ purchase in 1811, £14,131,075; they are now worth, by the same process, £52,748,375, equal to the total revenue of Great Britain only a few years since, and equal to five-sixths of the present revenue.”—City Press, April, 1867.