-infantum,--the deadly scourge of which I have
spoken,--the testimony of experience shows that change of air, even
temporary, often effects the cure of which the apothecary, who "pestles
a poisoned poison behind his crimson lights," cannot bring about with
his drugs, though the wisest of physicians had written the prescription.
This point is so important, and bears so directly, not only on the
necessity of park-spaces, but upon their distribution so as to bring
them within reach of all the crowded and unhealthy districts as far as
possible, that I shall borrow a few sentences, enforcing it, from
writers recognized as authorities on the diseases of children.

"Even in cases in which a removal to a healthy and airy situation in the
country is impracticable," says Dr. CONDIE of Philadelphia, long and
well known by his writings, "much benefit may be derived from carrying
the patient frequently into the open air in a carriage, or in the arms,
or, when its residence is near a large river, sailing it daily in an
open boat." And Dr. JOHN BELL of the same city says, "The restorative
effects of fresh air in cholera-infantum are strikingly evinced in the
relief procured by many hundreds of children every summer in
Philadelphia, by their simply crossing and recrossing the River Delaware
in steamboats once or twice a day. New life is restored to the little
beings, who, on leaving their homes in the city, seemed almost
exanimate, and in the last stage of incurable exhaustion." Dr. JAMES
STEWART of New York, in his treatise on the diseases of children, and
our own honored patriarch of the profession, the late Dr. JAMES JACKSON,
in his letters to a young physician, speak in similar terms of the great
advantage of change of place and of air. The "aquatic jaunts"
recommended by Dr. STEWART, and spoken of as so efficacious by Dr. BELL,
are among the advantages to be secured by the plan proposed by our Park
Commissioners. I wish twenty tons of little children could be shipped
every fine summer day for a good sail.

There is one particular region which I will mention as like to be
specially benefited by the plan referred to,--a region which would get
the advantages of the fresh air coming over the wide estuary of Charles
River without the expense and trouble of taking boats. The narrow and
crowded streets of the northern slope of Beacon Hill, and a wide region
extending northward from it, are inhabited by the very class most
exposed to cho