Our Country Villages 325 



mandments, viz.: thou shall plant trees, to hide the naked- 

 ness of the streets; and thou shalt not keep pigs, except in 

 the back yard ! * 



Our more reflective and inquiring readers will naturally 

 ask why is this better condition of things - - a condition 

 that denotes better citizens, better laws, and higher civili- 

 zation - - confined almost wholly to Massachusetts? To 

 save them an infinite deal of painstaking, research and in- 

 vestigation, we will tell them in a few words. That state 

 is better educated than the rest. She sees the advantage, 

 morally and socially, of orderly, neat, tasteful villages; in 

 producing better citizens, in causing the laws to be respected 

 in making homes dearer and more sacred, in making domes- 

 tic life and the enjoyment of property to be more truly and 

 rightly estimated. 



And these are the legitimate and natural results of this 

 kind of improvement we so ardently desire in the outward 

 life and appearance of rural towns. If our readers suppose 

 us anxious for the building of good houses, and the planting 

 of street avenues, solely that the country may look more 

 beautiful to the eye and that the taste shall be gratified 

 they do us an injustice. This is only the external sign by 

 which we would have the country's health and beauty known, 

 as we look for the health and beauty of its fair daughters in 

 the presence of the rose on their cheeks. But as the latter 

 only blooms lastingly there when a good constitution is 

 joined with healthful habits of mind and body, so the 

 tasteful appearance which we long for in our country 

 towns we seek as the outward mark of education, moral 

 sentiment, love of home, and refined cultivation, which 



* We believe we must lay this latter sin at the doors of our hard- 

 working emigrants from the Emerald Isle. Wherever they settle, they 

 cling to their ancient fraternity of porkers; and think it "no free country 

 where pigs can't have their liberty." Newburgh is by no means a well- 

 planned village, though scarcely surpassed for scenery; but we believe 

 it may claim the credit of being the only one among all the towns, cities 

 and villages of New York, where pigs and geese have not the freedom of 

 the streets. A. J. D. This savory footnote has been retained for its 

 remarkable historic interest. F. A. W. 



