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Health and the Metropolitan Park Commission, backed by President Eliot, former Mayor Matthews, and President Pritchett of the Institute of Technology, are gravely mistaken, Greater Boston has now entered upon a policy with regard to the Charles River and its Basin which is destined to have far-reaching effects on the future development of this important and beautiful portion of its domain; effects which may be decisive in turning the central metropolitan region toward an architectural and monumental ideal more ambitious and more majestic than anything yet attempted in America on so great a scale, with the single exception of the New Washington planned by the recent report of the McKimBurnham commission.

In naming and grouping the several characteristics of an art centre, I alluded to a definite public policy as to civic art, and I had in mind especially four subjects upon which Massachusetts, acting for Boston, has taken what may be considered advanced ground. The metropolitan park system we have already glanced at in speaking of Olmsted and the Charles River Basin improvement, and that we need not revert to except to say that the taking of something over fourteen thousand acres of land for purposes of recreation in the metropolitan district, and the expenditure of something over twelve millions for the municipal park" system, proves that the million people of Greater Boston fully realize the opportunities and obligations in this matter of a great metropolitan community, are confident of the future growth and prosperity of the district, and of the ability of the population to

take care of the financial burden involved in such a vast enterprise.

The other three questions upon which the Commonwealth has taken

enlightened action in behalf of the city are the establishment of the Boston Art Commission, the regulation of the height of buildings, and prohibition of advertising abuses on the borders of parks and parkways. While New York is still allowing the erection of scores of Babylonic sky-scrapers, edifices which, for the most part, are at once inartistic monstrosities and immoral impositions, since they rob whole neighborhoods of sunlight and air, besides imperilling the entire city by their liability to start unmanageable conflagations, Boston enjoys the benefit of a law which makes it impossible to build beyond the height of one hundred and twenty-five feet from the ground,-a restriction which is not as radical as it should be, doubtless, but which, on the other hand, is so much more radical than the restrictions of any other large city in the United States, that it marks the extreme point to which legislation on this subject has been pushed in a country where individual freedom to create public nuisances is so zealously guarded. One hundred and twenty-five feet is too much, but it is not so bad as two hundred and fifty feet, for instance. Eleven stories is the virtual limit of height under the Boston law, and that, in these days, relative to the New York standard, is not so very high. Better, far better, is the Parisian building law, which, by fixing the extreme limit of height at about sixty-six feet (twenty metres), makes it practically impossible to put up a building higher than six stories. Such a regulation as this takes into account three important things:

the safety of the city, its general appearance with reference to architectural symmetry and proportion, and the right of the inhabitants to enjoy each his or her due share of air and daylight. Until an American city shows, by official action, an equal consideration for the rights of its people, its architectural appearance, and its safety, we must be contented to remain the conscious inferiors of the Parisians in some of the most fundamental essentials of civilization.

Boston was the first American city to create a municipal art commission for the purpose of controlling the erection and location of statues, fountains, ornamental arches and gateways, monuments and memorials of any kind, and to give its advice, at the request of the mayor, aldermen or common council, as to the suitability of the design for any public building, bridge, or other structure. Two valuable precedents with respect to the disposal of undesirable public monuments have been afforded in recent years by the action of the municipal authorities. The Coggswell fountain, a paltry and lamentable composition, which had been placed in a particularly conspicuous part of the Common, was summarily removed, and has neither been seen nor heard of since, a municipal coup de main which almost justifies the existence of the Board of Aldermen. The portrait statue of Colonel Thomas N. Cass, of the Ninth Regiment, a small granite figure, which, by general consent, was not calculated to reflect honor either on the gallant soldier himself or on the community that sanctioned such a memorial, was removed from its location in the Public Garden, and an excellent bronze statue by Richard

Brooks was set up in its place. Two delicate problems were thus solved. The Coggswell fountain deserved no consideration, and no consideration was given to it; the Cass statue was, with all its shortcomings, a well-meant memorial to a brave officer and a useful regiment, therefore it was removed only to be supplanted by a worthier successor. Of the two measures cited, the latter is the wiser in most cases, and provides a precedent which may be commended to other cities which have accepted, not wisely, but too courteously, such impossible gifts as the Bolivar equestrian statue in New York, which has been taken from its pedestal, but not replaced, as it should be, by a better statue. The establishment of the Boston Art Commission was not a day too early, and it was followed by the creation of a similar board in New York. It may be taken for granted that no more Coggswell fountains nor Bolivars will rise to vex the citizens of these two cities. We shall still see more or less mediocre monuments built, but it is not possible today for absurd and hopeless travesties upon art to be dumped in our public grounds as they once were without let or hindrance.

It remains to mention the recently enacted law against advertising abuses. This act, passed in 1903, simply provides that the Metropolitan Park Commission and the officer or officers having charge of public parks and parkways in any city or town may make "such reasonable rules and regulations respecting the display of signs, posters or advertisements in, or near to, and visible from public parks and parkways entrusted to their care, as they may deem necessary for preserving the objects for which such parks and

parkways are established and maintained." Under the authority of this act, the Board of Park Commissioners of the City of Boston issued a notice on July 7, 1903, to the effect that within five hundred feet of a parkway or boundary road of any park "no person shall display ... any sign, poster or advertisement, except such as relates only to the business conducted on the premises, . . . and none shall be so displayed on the outside of a building, except signs on stone, metal, wood, or glass, not exceeding fifteen inches in width, and these shall be displayed only on windows, one on each side of any entrance, and one in one other place . . . provided, however, that signs, posters or advertisements not exceeding in size three feet by four feet and relating only to the selling or letting of premises may be displayed as aforesaid on such premises; and providing further that no sign, poster or advertisement shall be displayed as aforesaid on or above a roof or by painting on a building, wall, or fence."

At this writing, the above-named rules and regulations are not obeyed, and it is evidently the purpose of those whose interests are affected by them to test the constitutionality. of the rules, and possibly also the act itself, in the courts. It will soon be made clear, therefore, whether the Commonwealth and the Boston Park Commissioners have gone beyond their legitimate powers in attempting to regulate in a mild degree this admitted and arrogant. evil; if it shall turn out that they have done so, we may presume that the fault lies in the form rather than in the intention of the regulations, which are assuredly for the public.

good, and are supported by public sentiment, so far as it has made itself heard. In fact, if one may judge from the emphatic and frequent remarks of travellers on trains, steam-boats, trolley-cars, and other public conveyances, it appears probable that more sweeping restrictive measures, such as those recently inaugurated in some German cities, would meet with general approval if a legal way could be found to reach the advertising nuisance without infringing on vested rights.

If I have not cited better reasons for conceding to Boston some right to "look down on the mob of cities" than those brought forward by the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, I will ask the gentle reader to agree with Mr. Herbert Croly, that Boston has "almost" ceased to be an art centre. I do not understand what Dr. Holines means when he says that the real offence of Boston is that it "drains a large water-shed of its intellect, and will not itself be drained." On the contrary, it seems to me that all art, and especially all literary art, is, in the very nature of things, a perpetual out-giving, and can no more be localized, pent up, monopolized, than the winds of heaven. I can understand, however, the mood in which Emerson addressed Boston as:

"Thou darling town of ours!"

For I have had the privilege of seeing the great city, on several occasions, when it was aroused and thrilled by a generous enthusiasm, when one could feel that it was a fine thing to be a Bostonian, when one might truly say, that it was well to be a citizen of no mean city.

An Old Town by the Sea

By HAYES ROBBINS

Part-author of "Outlines of Political Science" and "Outlines of Social Economics."

'W

HOEVER shall shoot off a gun at any game whatsoever, except at an Indian

or a wolf, shall forfeit 5s. for such default." So decreed the Scituate forefathers away back in 1675, when ammunition happened to be more scarce than usual.

It was the ill-fated Indian who had roamed these stony beaches, trailed through the dank woods, threaded the broad marshlands, greeted the sunrise from the cliffs, paddled along the "cold brook," and from it given the region its name, Satuit; watched in amazement the coming of the white intruder but fifty years before, had resented it, done savage deeds, and now found himself and his new friend, the wolf, the only two kinds of "game" upon which it was impossible to spend too much powder and ball. Puritan theology, after the first few failures to dislodge his Great Spirit and Happy Hunting Grounds from the red man's recesses of faith, decided that a soul within a red man was impossible anyway. Thenceforth let him be a wolf to all men. Very well, then; if wolf he must be, wolf he would be, wolf he was: and he went the way of the wolf in the long, hard, cruel days and years that crushed the outer doings of his untutored mind, of his embittered heart, of his wild, uncomprehended instincts, under the heel of a civilization that deserved to

come but, alas! was only in its own rough forming through it all.

Those were the days of eld. There is little to recall them in the quaint and varying charm of this rugged seacoast today. In his role of lawful game our Indian has no successor, unless, world-wise suspicion within the newcomer dares to whisper, unless it be the summer boarder, but perish the thought! Elsewhere, perhaps, but here, never! His fitness for the part has not yet been grasped, and that is one reason why it is well to come here when other refuge fails. No: the marshbirds are the only game that receives much attention now; and judging from the morn-till-night "crack" here and "crack" there of the sportsmen's rifles it would seem that no such heroic measures are needed as the Scituate forefathers provided, for the common defence, no doubt, in the enactment that "Every householder shall kill and bring in six blackbirds yearly, between the 12th and the last day of May, on the penalty of forfeiting for the town's use 6d, for every bird short of that number."

Modern pilgrims to Plymouth, embark in modern Mayflowers on no more hazardous a cruise than an excursion from Boston, readily make out four bold promontories about half way down the south shore. These are the sea bulwarks of Scituate; sloping up gently from

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