Berlin, a mere village a century ago, is the third city of Europe in point of population, and its growth since 1870 has been phenomenal, as we shall see. Yet the technical barriers which enclose the city remain precisely what they were more than forty years ago, and Berlin is still as it was in 1861, compressed within twenty-eight square miles, six miles long and five and a half wide. At the close of the Franco-Prussian War Berlin, now the capital of a new empire, became a paradise for builders. Streets of houses appeared almost as if by magic, and the whole aspect of the city became changed. From being the worst lighted, the worst drained, and ugliest capital in Europe it has become one of the finest, cleanest, and handsomest of cities, and its population has more than doubled. Berlin now boasts within its boundaries 1,857,000 inhabitants. But without there is, in Ibsen's phrase, "the younger generation knocking at the door," and Greater Berlin might have a population of 2,430,000, with an area at least treble, extending, indeed, as far as Potsdam. Berlin's actual increase from 1800 to 1900 was 818 per cent., multiplying its population by nine. [Illustration: VIENNA COMPARED WITH LONDON.] "The transformation of Vienna" has for nearly half a century been a watchword amongst the progressive party in the Austrian capital. The example of Paris--with which the Viennese love to be compared--has, since 1858, brought to the fore innumerable Haussmannizing projects, all of which have tended to the city's amplifying and beautifying. The second or outer girdle of fortifications has been taken down; the barriers thus removed, fifty suburbs became, in 1891, part and parcel of the capital. Before this time Vienna was twenty-one English square miles, or one-third less than Paris; afterwards it covered sixty-nine square miles, besides having by the process added half a million to its population, which now stands at 1,662,269. But Vienna does not intend to be stationary in the coming decade. The fever of the municipal race for territory is upon her also. She is now reaching out for the adjoining town of Floridsdorf across the Danube, together with four other communes, having a population of 50,000; and this step increases the area of Vienna to about eighty-two square miles, nearly thrice the size of Berlin. Naturally such a large territory for a population smaller than a third that of London would comprise much open ground, especially as there is great overcrowding in the industrial districts. And, as a matter of fact, over five-eighths of Vienna is woods, pastures and vineyards, and arable ground, while above a tenth of the total area is made up of parks, gardens, and squares. The cost of making Vienna so vast has been enormous; but it has not been borne by the ratepayers to any oppressive extent, because the appropriated military ground and sites of fortifications have yielded a handsome profit, and municipal