BOSTON AND ITS ENVIRONS. 41 



and 175 feet wide from curb to curb, and in the centre 

 a picturesque strip of parkland, adorned with statues 

 and bordered with ornamental trees and shrubs, 

 follows its entire length. On either side of the street 



CI? 



stand palatial hotels and magnificent private resi- 

 dences, from whose innumerable windows twinkle in- 

 numerable lights, which, mingling with the quadruple 

 row of gas-lamps which look like a winding ribbon of 

 light, make the vista perfectly dazzling in its beauty. 

 By day, when the Back Bay Park, the Public Garden, 

 the fine bridge over the park water-way extension and 

 the handsome surrounding and intersecting streets can 

 be seen, the view is even more attractive. 



In the newer parts of Boston the reproach of 

 crooked streets, which has given her sister cities oppor- 

 tunity for so much good-natured " chaflF," is removed, 

 and the thoroughfares are laid out with such precision 

 that " the wayfaring man, though a fool," can hardly 

 "err therein." In the business district much money 

 has been spent on the straightening process, a fact 

 whose knowledge prompts the bewildered stranger to 

 exclaim, " Were thev ever worse than this? " Stories 

 aimed at this little peculiarity of the " Hui) " are innu- 

 merable, the visitor being told with perfect gravity tlmt 

 if he follows a street in a straight line he will find 

 himself at his original starting-point — a statement the 

 writer's experience can pretty nearly verify-. The best, 

 if not the most credible, of these taks relates how a 

 puzzled pedestrian, becoming " mixed up in his tracks," 

 endeavored to overtake a man who was walking ahead 

 of him, and inquire his way. The faster he walked, 

 however, the faster the other man walked, until it 

 became a regular chase, and the now thoroughly con- 



