LAYING OUT OF GROUNDS. 187 



Even in countries where such far-sighted improve- 

 ments are effected by the force majeure of an Imperial 

 edict, popular resentments or revolutions never find 

 their leverage in such tokens of extravagance. There 

 are not a thousand men in Paris, rich or poor, who 

 would make quarrel with Louis Napoleon for the 

 millions lavished upon the Bois de Boulogne, or the 

 appointments of the Park Monceau. But there were 

 tens of thousands of malcontents, in Louis Philippe's 

 time, with the fortification bill, and the inclosure for 

 private uses, of a terrace of the garden of the Tuil- 

 leries. The people may not, indeed, have a very clear 

 sense of their wants in the matter of a public park, 

 but once supply them attractively and accessibly, and 

 they feel the appositeness of the supply, and cling to 

 it with as much obstinacy as pride. 



We Americans have a way of shrinking from pro- 

 spective taxation, whatever the purpose of it may be ; 

 but when once fairly saddled with it, whether for the 

 benefit of corporations or monopolies or public im- 

 provements, we bear it with a most admirable un- 

 flinchingness. The costs of public gardens or parks, 

 if well ordered, and not made the vehicle of private 

 peculation, are not such as would create a remon- 

 strance from the people of any American city ; and 

 the difficulty in the way of establishment would 

 He not so much in a general spirit of hostility to 



