1 35 



the streets before they became so large as to flood the sidewalks. 

 At the same time an effort was made to so straighten and connect 

 some of the streets, that goods could be taken from one quarter of 

 the town to another by direct courses, and without the necessity of 

 doubling the horse-power at certain points, in order to overcome the 

 natural elevations of the ground. 



Thus, just one hundred years after Wren's suggestions were re- 

 jected by the merchants, their grandsons began to make lame efforts 

 to secure some small measure of the convenience which his plan had 

 offered them. 



A few of the latter improvements had been adopted in other 

 towns, at a somewhat earlier period than in London. In the plans of 

 St. Petersburg and of Philadelphia, for instance, directness and un- 

 usual amplitude of road-way had been studied; and some of the free 

 cities of Germany had, at an earlier date, possessed moderately broad 

 and well-paved streets, but the exceptions do not affect the conclusion 

 which we desire to enforce. 



To fully understand the reason of this long neglect to make any 

 wise preparation for the enlargement of population which it would 

 seem must surely have been anticipated, we need to consider that 

 while a rapid advance was all the time occurring from the state of 

 things when a town was intended to be governed with little direct 

 regard for the interests of any but a very few of its occupants, at 

 the same time direct responsibility for the care of its interests was 

 being diffused and held for shorter intervals, and was, consequently, 

 less and less felt, as a motive to ingenuity and energy, by any one 

 of the several individuals who partook in it. The theory and form 

 of town government changed more slowly than the character and 

 modes of life of those who were called upon to administer it, but an 

 adherence to the antiquated forms was only calculated to make a 

 personal duty, with reference to the actual new conditions of the 

 people, less easily realized and less effectively operative. What is 

 everybody's business is nobody's ; and although, of late years, ex- 

 perts, with professional training in special branches, are not unfre- 

 quently engaged by municipal bodies to study particular require- 

 ments of the people, and invent means to satisfy them, still, as 

 a general rule, improvements have come in most cities, when 

 they have come at all, chiefly through the influence of individual 

 energy, interested in behalf of special mercantile or speculative 

 enterprises, by which the supineness of the elected and paid 

 representatives of the common interests of the citizens has been 

 overborne. 



