114 THE BOULEVARDS. 



tecture that has of recent years sprung up in many of 

 our leading streets is, with all its faults, infinitely to be 

 preferred to the bald formality and monotony characteristic 

 of the style adopted in the best streets of Paris. With our 

 street architecture, which has improved so much, and pro- 

 mises so much more, we might, if we could only obtain 

 open, handsome, tree-enlivened streets, eventually pro- 

 duce a result of which we, and all interested in city im- 

 provement, might justly be prouder than the French are of 

 their boulevards. 



How far we are behind them at present, those can tell who 

 know what has been done of late years in such cities as 

 Rouen, Lyons, and Paris, and who are also acquainted with 

 our own great, sooty, packed, and cheerless cities. Are our 

 cities and towns to remain a mere agglomeration of furrows 

 — ruts which to the over-passing bird must seem an excellent 

 contrivance for preventing foul vapours to escape from the 

 abode of men — or are they to receive as much attention, as 

 to laying out, as is bestowed upon the surroundings of a 

 suburban villa? At first sight there does not seem any 

 reason why the places where men most congregate should 

 be those from which all who can afford it escape as 

 often as possible ; though, doubtless, in a country where the 

 laws of supply and demand regulate everything and every- 

 body in such a satisfactory way, and where political economy 

 is so well understood, one would not have to travel far for 

 reasons why things are right as they are. But judging by 

 results few will deny that the disposition of our cities is a 

 disgrace to any civilized race. Why, without touching at 

 all upon the most crowded and filthy parts of London, one 

 may see more in a walk from the Strand or Fleet-street to 

 the Regent's Park than would suffice to make him exclaim, 

 " What a miserable and disheartening accompaniment of all 

 our boasted progress I" Such a reeking mass of mismanage- 

 ment as may be found from east to west and north to 

 south, the world- has probably never seen ; and yet London 

 is the " richest city in the world \" The wealth of it, 

 compared to that of such towns as Rouen or Milan, is as 

 Mont Blanc to Primrose Hill; yet either of these cities 



