TORONTO: AN HISTORICAL SKETCH 
The plan of the future capital was drawn in that 
rectangular form which the military engineers of the 
Romans impressed on the conquered provinces of 
Europe, and of which the city of Chester is an inter- 
esting survival. However suitable for the camp of 
a Roman legion, or for the compact walled cities 
which grew out of such camps, this rectangular mode 
of laying out streets has proved far from practical 
for the widely extended cities on the American con- 
tinent, where land is plenty and wars are rare. Pro- 
fessor Shaler had a theory that the Roman empire 
fell because of the economic waste due to the vast 
cost of the Roman roads. It is highly probable that 
the yearly loss due to the Roman system of laying out 
cities would build any road in the Roman empire. 
Few cities show this fault in so marked a degree as 
Toronto. In its growth from the tiny rectangle 
enclosed by George, Duke, Berkeley and Palace (now 
Front) Streets, about an eighth of a square mile in 
extent, to its present area of over thirty-two square 
miles, there has been hardly any variation in the 
rigid angularity of its outlines. Neither hill nor 
dale, creek nor river, bluff nor ravine has been 
allowed to deflect the monotonous straight lines of 
its streets. This is the more surprising since the few 
exceptions which help to prove the rule are so strik- 
ing. The fine vista effects of the City Hall at the 
head of Bay Street, Osgoode Hall at the head of 
York, and the Parliament Buildings facing the 
Queen’s Avenue were as barren of influence on the 
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