114 OCEAN TO OCEAN ON HORSEBACK. 



thoroughfare, whose stores, with their dainty wares and 

 tasteful fabrics, would do credit to many a large city. 



On the south of the park stands the Athenaeum, a 

 building of rough stone, erected at the cost of $100,000 

 as a "tribute to art, science, and literature,'' and pre- 

 sented to his fellow-townspeople by Thomas Allen. 

 It contains a large free library, an art gallery, and a 

 very entertaining museum of curiosities. Next door to 

 tilt; Athenaeum is the large white Court House, said to 

 have cost $400,000. Across from the Court House, in 

 a little corner of the park, is a tiny music house, gay 

 with colored electric lights, where open air evening 

 concerts are given all through the summer. 



On the north of the park stand two of the hand- 

 somest of Pittsfield's eleven churches. 



The city's manufactories are large and thrifty, but 

 they, and the operatives who manipulate them, are 

 tucked away in a corner, so to speak, where they may 

 not offend the eyes of the opulent inhabitants. Only 

 in the riotous jostle of Saturday night in the store is 

 one brought face to face with the fact that beauty, 

 leisure and wealth do not hold a monopoly of the 

 sweet Berkshire air. For everything appears so 

 lovely. The streets are very wide, great stately 

 avenues, where beautiful strips of the finest lawn bor- 

 der each edge of the sidewalk. Society is the choicest, 

 for the summer residences of New York's four hun- 

 dred intermingle with the magnificent old mansions 

 owned by the staunchest of ^lassachusetts' old blue- 

 blooded sons and daughters. Cropping out through 

 the elegance of this little city are some queer old 

 Yankee traits. Lawlessness there is none. No police- 

 men guard the park, with its ideal lawns, but a polite 



