the
enlargement of their own library, their librarian, Mr. Spofford, induced
them to purchase the whole mass, just as it stood, for one hundred
thousand dollars, and the collection now forms part of the Congressional
library.

Colonel Force lived to the year 1868, when he died at Washington,
universally beloved and lamented, in the seventy-eighth year of his age,
enjoying almost to the last two of the things he loved best--his books
and his flowers.

JOHN BROMFIELD,

MERCHANT.

John Bromfield's monument is more lasting than brass. It was he who left
to the city of Newburyport, in Massachusetts, ten thousand dollars for
planting and preserving trees in the streets, and keeping the sidewalks
in order. The income of this bequest would not go far in any other sort
of monument, but it has embowered his native city in beautiful trees.
Every spring other trees are planted, and, as long as that bequest is
faithfully administered, he cannot be forgotten.

Nothing brings a larger or surer return than money judiciously spent in
making towns and cities pleasant. It not only yields a great revenue of
pleasure and satisfaction to the inhabitants; it not only benefits every
individual of them every hour, but it invites residents from abroad; it
is a standing invitation to persons of taste and good sense. The wisest
thing the city of New York ever did, next to the introduction of the
Croton water, was the creation of the Central Park; the one feature
which redeems the city from the disgrace of its dirty streets and its
agonizing tenement region.

This John Bromfield, merchant, was just such a thoughtful and benevolent
man as we should naturally expect to find him from his bequest. He
belonged to a class of merchants which is rapidly becoming extinct. The
cable telegraph and the steam freight ship are superseding the merchants
of moderate capital, and are concentrating the great business of
interchanging commodities in the hands of a few houses who reckon their
capital by millions. Born at Newburyport, in 1779, he was brought up by
excellent parents near Boston, who practiced the old-fashioned system of
making him hardy and self-helpful. His mother used to say that when he
was old enough to wear leather shoes she bored holes in the soles in
order to accustom him to wet feet, so that he might be made less liable
to catch cold from that cause. This appears to have been a custom of
that generation, for it is recorded of the