192 OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES. 



overgrowth of wild sedges, foul with heaps of 

 garbage, uninviting in every possible way, and yet 

 lying within stone's throw of the centre of the city. 

 Sandy highlands, almost totally unimproved, flank it 

 immediately upon the west disposed there, as it 

 would seem, for the very purpose of furnishing easy 

 material for the filling in of the flat below. A few 

 thousands would accomplish this, and judicious plant- 

 ing and outlay would in three years' time establish a 

 charming promenade or garden in the centre of the 

 sea-front of the town, and there is not one of the 

 adjoining pieces of property but would be doubled in 

 value by the operation. The neglect of such oppor- 

 tunities, whether due to miserable local jealousies, or, 

 as often happens, to the short-sightedness and indif- 

 ference of municipal authorities, is surely not compli- 

 mentary to our civilization. 



The term " near to town," in these times of horse 

 railways, has rather a relative than positive signifi- 

 cance. Three miles, by a fair, broad avenue, upon 

 which well-equipped cars are making their rounds 

 every half hour of the day, is not half so large a 

 distance for either the laboring or the business man 

 to compute, as a mile and a half of ill-kept, old- 

 fashioned turnpike road. 



The truth is, that citizens of sleepy towns in the 

 interior are losing their reckoning about distances ; 



