wharves can fully realize the local significance of the carved codfish hanging in the Massachusetts State-House.

XXVIII.

BOSTON CHARACTERISTICS.

THE development in many ways of the great public spirit of the people is a prominent characteristic of Boston and its suburbs. They take pride in their city and its high rank in the country, its culture, energy, history, and achievements. The wealthy townsfolk, both while. living and after death, have devoted their fortunes to the benefit of the community by gifts of fountains and statues, public halls, libraries, and educational endowments, many being of most princely character. There are more libraries, schools, colleges, art and scientific collections, museums, conservatories of music, technological institutes, and all the wide range of educational foundations, in and near Boston than in any other American city. Next to the Library of Congress, the Boston Public Library is the largest in America, the spacious edifice being constantly crowded with book-borrowers and readers. The love of the fine arts was long ago developed among the Bostonians, and the frequent open spaces at the street-intersections, as well as the public grounds, are adorned by admirable statues of prominent men and groups representing historical events of national renown. When not overweighted with the pressure of business cares the people of Boston seem to be always studying and investigating, the women as well as the men alike pursuing the difficult paths of abstruse knowledge with indomitable Yankee perseverance, so that armies of them, thoroughly equipped, scatter over the country every year to impart their learning to less-favored communities

THE BACK BAY AND THE SUBURBS.

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and guide the newer settlements in the Far West in their start upon the road to wealth and knowledge. Of this is the "Modern Athens" largely composed, and Boston is proud indeed of such a prominent characteristic.

When the great fire of 1872 had been quenched and an estimate was being formed of the enormous losses, the significant statement was made that "the best treasure of Boston cannot be burnt up. Her grand capital of culture and character, of science and skill, humanity and religion, is beyond the reach of flame. Sweep away every store and house, every school and church, and let the people with their history and habits remain, and they still have one of the richest and strongest cities on earth."

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The Boston people also demonstrate their public spirit by liberal gifts for the erection of magnificent buildings, and these grand structures are scattered with prodigality all around the town. These are the homes of art, science, and education, as well as of business. many fine churches, especially in the newer districts of the West End, whither have removed into grand temples of modern artistic construction quite a number of the wealthy congregations that were noted in the olden time. Boston has its clubs also, of which there are endless varieties, formed for every conceivable purpose, and not the least attribute to which many of them pay particular if not exclusive devotion being periodic feasting. In fact, one robust Bostonian told me that the "Hub" seemed in danger of being "clubbed to death." Its sturdy devotion to social enjoyments in some respects is quite as pronounced as the development of education and philanthropy.

THE BACK BAY AND THE SUBURBS.

One is not many days in Boston without discovering that the city long since became too cramped for the rapidly-expanding population. The municipality has consequently grown over an extensive network of outlying suburbs across

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the flats and ponds and waterways environing the original town, from which a vast mass of humanity pours in every morning to transact business. There are eight railways leading out from the city over causeways and bridges, and carrying enormous traffic to the suburban districts. beautifying and extending the city itself, however, Boston could not have done a better thing than filling in what is known as the "Back Bay," an extensive tract, originally marsh and lowlands, adjacent to Charles River and west of the Common. During more than thirty years this improvement has been going on, making a spacious new district in the West End, now containing the best streets, with the finest churches and hotels and elaborate rows of elegant "swell-front" dwellings of the favorite Boston style of rounded construction, which are the homes of the modern aristocracy. Through this splendid district for over a mile stretches the grand Commonwealth Avenue, two hundred and forty feet wide, its centre being a tree-embowered park adorned by statues and having on either side a magnificent boulevard. The residences are fronted by delicious gardens, and fashionable equipages roll over the smooth paveFine streets at intervals cross this grand avenue at right angles, their names being arranged alphabetically as one proceeds westward by the adoption of these well-known English titles: Arlington, Berkeley, Clarendon, Dartmouth, Exeter, Fairfield, Gloucester, Hereford, etc. Parallel to the avenue are also laid out Boylston, Marlborough, Newbury, and Beacon Streets through this favorite residential district of more modern Boston.

ments.

Beyond this, and for five miles through the growing suburb of Brookline, there is being constructed a noble driveway, combining all the attractions of park, garden, boulevard, and footwalk, with also a special bicycle-track upon the latest approved method, Boston being the first city to thus properly recognize the rights of this useful and popular vehicle. Leading out to the southern and south-west

ern suburbs, it finds in Roxbury and the hills beyond, and in Brookline and Brighton, a region of wondrous development and beauty. The surface is undulating and superbly wooded, dotted with crystal lakes, and displaying a succession for miles of costly country-houses and villas that are constructed upon every artistic style and varying fashion. Their hedges and groves and gardens and greensward are at this season in full-leafed midsummer glory. This favorite region spreads beyond the limit of close settlement, with as much verdure as the rocky condition of the land will permit, up to the great water reservoir of Chestnut Hill, which holds eight hundred million of gallons and is the storehouse for the city's needs. Here the villa-covered surface is constantly enlarging as the people are able to devote more money to its adornment. The attractive driveway in this district is around the great reservoir, a broad road being laid on its surrounding embankment, which is at times raised to a higher level where the hillside permits, so that the scenery of woods and water and over the distant landscape is very fine. Jamaica Pond and Jamaica Plain are near by, and beyond the latter are two of Boston's attractive cemeteries, Mount Hope and Forest Hills.

BUNKER HILL.

A prominent feature of Boston is the location of one of the world's great historical battles within the city-Bunker Hill, marked by a noble monument rising on the centre of the hilltop north of Charles River, where the British stormed the Yankee redoubt in June, 1775. This battlefield was then in the Charlestown district, out in the open country, beyond Charles River, but it has long since been covered with houses as the city spread, excepting upon the small open space reserved for a little park around the monument on the summit of the hill. The granite shaft rises two hundred and twenty-one feet upon the highest part of the eminence, which is elevated sixty-two feet

above the level of Charles River. Facing Boston, in front of the monument, the direction from which the attack came, is the bronze statue of Colonel William Prescott, who commanded the Continental troops, the broad-brimmed hat shading his earnest face as with deprecatory yet deter mined gesture he uttered the memorable words of warning that resulted in such terrible punishment of the British storming-column: "Don't fire until I tell you; don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes." The traces of the hastily-constructed breastworks, thrown up during the previous night, can be seen on the brow of the hill, and a stone marks where Warren fell; for the noted Dr. Joseph Warren, who made the impassioned speech in the Old South Church that did so much to kindle the Revolutionary feeling in Boston, was among the slain at Bunker Hill. The top of the tall monument gives a splendid view in all directions over the harbor and suburbs of Boston-mapping out the maze of water-courses and railroads, with the many towns and villages, the fields and forests, and the shipping clustering at the wharves or moving over the waters. This grand outlook embraces a wide expanse of country, showing the vast growth and busy industries of the complex mass of humanity clustering upon the coasts of Massachusetts Bay. There is only one apparently idle locality. Adjoining the harbor and surrounded by a high stone wall is an enclosure with its storehouses and docks fronting the water and covering an extensive surface behind, yet almost utterly lifeless, so far as can be seen. There is an old hulk moored off the shore, but the shops and docks show little sign. This is the Charlestown Navy-yard, covering about a hundred acres and having an extensive frontage on the river, with a grand dry-dock and fine ropewalk. It needs a reinvigorated United States navy to give it occupation.