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CHAPTER IX. 



Avenues and Boulevards. 



Parks and gardens are excellent in tlieir way, but they effect 

 only a partial good if vast areas of densely-packed streets are 

 unrelieved by green or open spots where the air may obtain a 

 vantage ground in its work of removing impurities. The slight 

 good efl'ected by fine parks placed here and there in or towards 

 the outskirts of a city is as nothing compared with what may be 

 carried out by so planning and planting streets and roads that 

 the air might be comparatively pure and free, and the eye 

 refreshed with green at almost every point. What would the 

 new boulevards of white stone be without the softening and 

 refreshing aid of those long lines of trees that everywhere rise 

 around the buildings, helping them somewhat as the grass does 

 the buttercups? The makers of new Paris— who deserve the 

 thanks of the inhabitants of all the filthy cities of the world 

 for setting such an example — answer these questions for us by 

 pulling down close and noisome quarters, where the influence of 

 fresh air and trees was not felt ; by piercing the city with long 

 wide streets, flanked with rows of trees ; and by relieving in 

 every possible direction man's work in stone with the changeful 

 beauty of tree-life. It is pleasant to add that these improvements 

 of Paris were not part of the scheme of one government only. 

 Since the Empire the good work has gone on more vigorously, 

 and certainly more economically than before. Only lately, two 

 of the most striking improvements ever effected in Paris — the 

 avenue from the Opera to the Rue de Rivoli, and the I^oulevard 

 St. Germain, have been completed. 



Paris shows the most praiseworthy attempts yet seen to render 

 an originally close and dirtv citv hcalthv and pleasant ; and this 



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