LAYING OUT OF GROUNDS. 191 



uneasy footing on the hill-side, and a gaunt-jail, 

 which is the very apotheosis of ugliness, crowns this 

 picturesque height. 



Another little city, that of Hartford, in the neigh- 

 bor State of Connecticut, has made the most of its 

 opportunities by converting into a charming public 

 garden a weary waste of ground that lay between its 

 railway station and the heart of the city. The op- 

 portunity was not large, to be sure, but it was one 

 that needed a keen eye for its development, and the 

 result has shown that commercial thrift may not 

 unfrequently take its lesson with profit from the sug- 

 gestions of a cultivated taste. There is many a 

 growing town having somewhere within its borders 

 such unsuspected aptitude and capability, that only 

 needs an eye to discern it, and the requisite enterprise 

 to develop in the very heart of the population a 

 garden and a public promenade that would become a 

 joy forever. It must be remembered, furthermore, 

 that it is quite impossible to make such transmutation 

 of waste and unsightly places into an attractive area 

 of garden-land, without increasing enormously the 

 taxable value of all surrounding property. I recall 

 now, in one of our most thriving seaside cities, a 

 great slough of oozy tide-mud of many acres in 

 extent, shut off from the harbor front by a low rail- 

 way embankment, showing here and there a riotous 



