rporation of the Boston
Elevated Railroad Company.

One of his most vigorous letters, occupying a column and a half, in
the Boston _Herald_ of July 17, 1895, is a powerful plea for the
rejection by the people of an act which should give the traffic of the
streets of Boston and surrounding municipalities into the hands of a
corporation for all time. He considered that the act, which had been
rushed through the legislature in one day at the close of the session,
was a hasty piece of patchwork made by dovetailing two bills together,
and was highly objectionable. He wrote:

"Why shall the people give away their own rights? Do they not own the
ground beneath the surface and the air above the surface?... What need
is there of a corporation? Cannot the people in their sovereign
capacity do for themselves all that a corporation can do? Why give
away their rights, and burden themselves with taxes for the benefit of
a corporation?

"Does some one say it is a nationalistic idea? Then it is nationalism
for Boston to own Quincy Market, the water supply, the system of
sewerage. Far different from governmental ownership of railroads, with
the complications of interstate commerce, is the proposition for
public ownership of street railways. A street is a highway. Why shall
not the subway under the street, or the structure over it, be a
highway, built and owned by the people, and for their use and benefit,
and not for the enrichment of a corporation?"

After forcibly presenting the reasonable objections to the bill, he
closed by pleading that it be rejected, and that the next legislature
be asked to establish a metropolitan district and the appointment of a
commission with full power to do everything that could be done under
the bill, "not for the greed of a corporation, but for the welfare of
the people."

CHAPTER XXVII.

LIFE'S EVENING GLOW.

Carleton's biographer having resigned the pastorate of Shawmut Church
at the end of 1892, the work was continued by the Rev. William E.
Barton, who had been called from Wellington, Ohio. He began his
ministrations March 1, 1893. As so very many families forming the old
church, and who had grown up in it from early manhood, youth, or even
childhood, had removed from the neighborhood, it was necessary to
reorganize to a certain extent. The great changes which had come over
the South End, and the drift of population to the more attractive
neighborhoods in the Back Bay, Brookline, Do