LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE. 51 



and crammed to their utmost capacity were barely large enough to 

 accommodate the growing business of their occupants before the fire. 

 Looking to the probable wants of the commercial future they needed 

 to be enlarged rather than curtailed. But if they must be cut down, 

 and thus rendered unavailable for the purposes of business on a large 

 scale, to which they were formerly devoted, in order that we may 

 have immunity from great fires, as well as wide and commodious 

 streets running through from State street to the South End railroad 

 depots, then their owners and lessees must be fairly paid for the per- 

 sonal sacrifices demanded of them. They cannot be expected to 

 offset these sacrifices on the score of betterments because there is no 

 such thing as betterments in these cases. 



A widened, street can be of no possible benefit to an abuttor, if it 

 does not leave him land enough to rebuild a store on such as will 

 accommodate his business. Besides, it is the opinion of many of 

 these abutters, that wider streets, although they may afford greater 

 facilities for through travel and transportation, will not offer any 

 special or additional attraction to their local trade. It is also a nota- 

 ble fact that in most cases where they are ready to admit the public 

 necessity of such street improvements, they still insist that the 

 widening can most easily and cheaply be affected on the side opposite 

 to that on which their own premises are located. Such an opinion, of 

 course, is natural ; but then it shows that our merchants and real 

 estate owners in that quarter of the city are standing in a defensive 

 attitude against what they regard as an impending slaughter of their 

 interests, and hence it behooves our municipal authorities to move 

 with great caution and forbearance in the matter. 



But while we would have them exceedingly careful not to take a 

 single foot of land needed for private business purposes that is not 

 positively required by the public exigences of the present occasion, 

 and, moreover, do not believe that it is necessary to make every street 

 running down to or parallel to our water front sixty or seventy feet 

 wide, yet we would counsel no niggardly or penny -wise policy in 

 carrying out a system of local inprovements which is to stand for all 

 future time. These should be undertaken on a liberal but not extrav- 



