562 



THE AMERICAN MONTHLY REVIEW OF REVIEWS. 



BROOKS ROAD AND TORTER S COVE, MIDDLESEX FELLS RESERVATION. 



(One of the attractive spots reclaimed by the State of Massachusetts for the 

 benefit of the people.) 



and spider-webs o f 

 clothes line over many 

 a romantic hill and 

 dale. 



Public indifference 

 to the need of park 

 land and to the loss of 

 beautiful scenery was a 

 foe worse than the pro- 

 moter. The early col- 

 onists reserved much 

 " common " land, but 

 it had been largely frit- 

 tered away. Salisbury, 

 for instance, had a fine 

 " training-field." An 

 abutter planted a row 

 of trees in this field. 

 When his fence fell, 

 some years later, it 

 was rebuilt outside the 

 trees, to which, with 

 the included land, his 

 title is now undisputed. 

 Yarmouth had a large 

 utes away by street-car, for a jungle of wood- common that was granted to certain persons 

 en dwellings on fifty-foot lots, and no park as long as they should use the land, but with 

 within reach. The Boston suburb of Ever- no intent of giving transferable rights. These 

 ett, typical of many, had in 1893, with 16,- holdings were sold, and the town has never 

 OOO people, not a foot of park land. defended its now dubious title. Such en- 



By a curious irony, the lovelier the spot croachments could not ordinarily be called 

 the likelier for an area of ugliness under the dishonest since they merely absorbed what no 

 hand of the speculator. Low land along the one valued. In more flagrant cases, men who 

 Charles, Mystic, and Neponset rivers, whose swindled towns out of valuable " common " 

 luxuriant vegetation re- 

 vealed nature in most 

 jocund mood, was pe- 

 culiarly available for 

 cheap promotion, be- 

 cause its unsuitability 

 for building placed it 

 on the market at a 

 small price. Pictur- 

 esque tracts about the 

 Blue Hills and Mid- 

 dlesex Fells, unfit for 

 street, sewer, and house 

 construction because of 

 rocky irregularity', were 

 for similar reasons go- 

 ing for low prices that 

 threatened shabby de- 

 velopment. Kangaroo 

 tenements, three stories 

 in front and four or 

 five in the rear to fit 



tne slope, threw ugly view east from mattapan bridge. 



gingerbread balconies (Neponset River Reservation.) 



