146 OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES. 



Is there no mending this ? Will town or borough 

 officials always remain insensible to the good in- 

 fluences of an inviting and decorous approach to 

 the territory which is subject to their keeping? 

 Dram-shops, and oyster-shops, and slatternly land- 

 offices, will doubtless, under our present civiliza- 

 tion, have position somewhere ; but must they 

 needs be foisted upon the area about the village 

 Station? Must we always confront a town with 

 its worst side foremost? Suppose for a moment 

 that the old Village Green were translated to the 

 neighborhood of the station, or a companion spot 

 of rural attractiveness established there, around 

 which the waiting equipages might circle in attend- 

 ance suppose a pleasant shade of elms spreading 

 itself upon that now dusty area suppose the corpo- 

 rate authorities keenly alive to the aspect which their 

 town and its approaches may wear in the eye of the 

 world which looks on, and forms its -judgment every 

 day by thousands suppose an inviting inn, duly li- 

 censed, swings its sign under some near bower of 

 trees, will all this count nothing toward the growth, 

 the reputation, the dignity of a country locality ? I 

 know I am writing in advance of the current practice 

 in these respects ; but I am equally sure that I am 

 not writing in advance of the current practice fifty 

 years hence, if only the schools are kept open. The 



