ey will not cease to exist,
but they will come before us in the most shameful and unwholesome form.
We used to be told, gentlemen, that Boston had natural parks all about
her, and she did not need any artificial parks. Well, now, I am not in
favor of any artificial parks. All I ask is, that the beauty of the
environs of Boston may be preserved. [Applause.]

We are on the defensive. We are defending the wholesomeness and the
beauty of our beloved city against this encroachment of population. Why,
the time was--Mr. ROPES will tell you when the time was--when the Back
Bay was a beautiful sheet of water, filled at high tide, carrying the
healthful air through the whole city. But then the necessity of
population called for its filling up, and it is now piled in upon, and
we have there now what Dr. CLARKE called "a natural cesspool."

We changed the Back Bay from a beautiful bay, where the wholesome tides
of the ocean swept in, to a natural cesspool.

Well, now, look at the lanes and roads in the suburbs of
Boston--beautiful. As you ride over them, there are trees hanging over
them, and there are bushes on each side: you say it is charming. Well,
go out there the next year. The selectmen if it is a town, the city
government if it is a city, have changed all that. They have made a
straight line right through it, and widened the streets sixty feet; cut
down every tree, and made it one of the most disagreeable and painful
spectacles that the eyes could rest upon. It is their duty so to do: it
is a necessity. And so you go on destroying the beauties of the city,
destroying its wholesomeness, destroying its charm; and now we have got
to meet that tendency, and we have the power to meet it. We have the
intellect, we have the money, we have the will, and we have the taste;
and we would be incensed if any one should suggest that we do not. And
yet we have allowed every city in the United States to get in advance of
us. [A voice, "That's so."] Chicago has three thousand acres of parks;
Philadelphia, five thousand; New York, one great park of about one
thousand acres; and almost every city in Europe has better, more
handsome and attractive accommodations than the city of Boston. I am
ashamed to say it; but it is so. I trust, however, gentlemen, that,
before I ever have the honor of addressing you again, we shall have
taken the first step to remove this odium from the city of Boston.
[Applause.]

Some six years ago, I think it was,