1 86 OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES. 



who loves a sleek team, and indulges in its display 

 will vie with the workman (who wants romping 

 place for his children) in clamor for a public park. 

 If our vanities and our healthful tastes were always 

 as closely yoked, we should have a better growth 

 from the yoking. However, it may come about 

 whether from the natural impulses of a crowded 

 population to ally themselves once again with the 

 bounteous amplitude of the fields, or whether from 

 the artificial desire to give room and exhibition to 

 equipages it is undeniable that all towns of ambi- 

 tious pretensions and of assured and rapid growth do, 

 after a certain period of street packing, bestir them- 

 selves in a feverish way to secure some easy lounging- 

 place under the trees. Unfortunately the stir is, for 

 the most part, at so late a day, that all available or 

 desirable localities have been secured for other pur- 

 poses. But, whatever the alternative of cost, I can- 

 not learn that such an enterprise, when thoroughly 

 matured and in complete operation, has ever proved a 

 disappointment. I have never heard of a disposition 

 on the part of voters to rescind any appropriation for 

 such a purpose, and to convert a public garden or 

 park to economic uses. I never heard of an instance 

 where pride did not speedily attach to the public 

 grounds, if accessible and well cared for, and where 

 the people of such a town did not make a boast and 

 a glory of the endowment. 



