and Charlestown Street is beyond this, passing by Copp's Hill. Upon this hill, which has been considerably reduced in size, is the oldest church in Boston-Christ Church in Salem Street-from whose steeple on the eve of the battle of Lexington were displayed the lights giving warning of the movement of the British troops starting for Concord. These lights notified Paul Revere over the Charles River, who made his famous midnight ride that roused the country. The silver plate, service-books, and Bible belonging to this church were gifts from George II., and in its churchyard are the graves of the three reverend doctors Mather who had so much to do with the early colony-Increase, Cotton, and Samuel. THE BOSTON FIRE. Reference has been made to the destructive Boston fire of 1872 that was stopped with so much effort at the Old South Church. Closely following the great Chicago fire, this conflagration continued two days, ravaging the wealthiest district of Boston, and burning seven hundred and seventy-six buildings and property valued at nearly eighty million dollars, the flames extending over fifty acres of the business quarter. There were many lives lost and there was much suffering, but the people set to work quickly reconstructing their city in far better style, straightening and widening the narrow, crooked streets, and putting up much finer buildings. This once-desolated region east of Washington Street is now the centre of enormous business operations that fully occupy many noble structures, so that every trace of the great fire was long ago effaced. Among the finest of the new buildings is the magnificent post-office, of Cape Ann granite, that cost the Government over seven million five hundred thousand dollars. As the visitor traverses the section devoted to trade the evidences of Boston's extensive business operations are more and more impressive. Enormous office-buildings, elevated many stories toward the THE BOSTON FIRE. 201 skies; huge insurance-offices; extensive blocks of stores; scores of banks; innumerable mercantile houses; and the endless processions of trucks moving upon excellently paved streets, show the wealth and trade of the vigorous town. Stretching down from the old State-House to the harbor is State Street, the home of the brokers and bankers. The greatest boot- and shoe-marts in the world are in Pearl and Bedford Streets, selling the vast product of the Massachusetts shoe-factories. In a half dozen neighboring streets is the dry-goods district, controlling and selling the output of hundreds of New England cotton- and woollen-mills. The merchants, the lawyers, and all the railway-offices are congregated in the region between Tremont and Washington Streets and the harbor. I have described Beacon Hill and referred to Copp's Hill. To give better business and commercial facilities the third eminence of the "tri-mountain," Fort Hill, was cut down, and its earth and rocks were used to fill in and grade the magnificent marginal street fronting the harbor-Atlantic Avenue. This broad street, carrying the rails of the steam-railways, thus crossing the heads of the long docks and giving facilities for shipment, is of the greatest advantage to Boston commerce. In front of it the piers project, in some cases as much as eight hundred feet, into the harbor, having rows of capacious storehouses in their centres, while on either side are docks of large size filled with shipping. Here is conducted an extensive traffic with all parts of the world, and to these wharves come the hardy fishermen with their yacht-like fishing-smacks and flocks of dories to unload their cargoes of cod and mackerel and take in supplies for another voyage. Fleets of these trim little vessels are in the docks with piles of fish in the stores, and the crews preparing for new voyages to the fishingbanks. This fishing industry is of great importance to New England, and invaluable to the country as an educator of the sailor; and any one strolling about these 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 pres sure 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. 203 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." 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. There are 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 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. In 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 |