The Sun.
London, England, 1856-11-04 00:00:00

ROSTON-UNITED STATES.

r From the Times' Special CorPcspondeid. )
BOSTON, OCT. 19.
Those who gave the name of New Eugland to
this group of the northern provinces of America
were happier in their choice than most of the dis-
coverers and settlers who have dispersed the names
of. the Old World over new regions with little
meaning and much confusion of geography. New
England might at first be only the expression of
remembrance, but time has converted it into much
more. The people worked in the spirit of the land
they left ; there has been less infusion of the
foreign elements that may be traced in other parts
of America, and gradually New England has
grown into a very close reproduction of the old.
Both in town and country an Englishman finds
much quite familiar to him. Landing at Boston,
,he was to rub his eyes slightly and recall the waste
of ocean he has traversed before he thoroughly
" realises" the fact that he is not at home ; the dif-
ference is so slight and to be remarked mostly in
minor peculiarities. In New York, but for the
language, he might be puzzled to say exactly where
he was ; over that cosmopolite capital two or three
European cities seem to have been shaken, and
then stirred up with it. There is something of its
Dutch origin ; the tree-planted streets, minus the
canals, for instance, are importations from Holland,
and among the bast things the Dutchmen have left
behind them. There is much that is German, still
more that is French, in taste, dress, and decora-
tion, and there are localities at once new and
dilapidated, regularly built but squalid and I
dis-
orderly, settlements that are the ragged fringe of
its purple, which repeat but too faithfully the fea-
tures of the Liberties and St. Giles. The most
distinctly British contribution to New York is,
unhappily, the least favourable, a fact not forgot-
ten in auy account struck between the nations. But
the capital of Now England, Boston, has only one
character ; it is solidly and steadily English, set-
tled down into an English mould, and hardened
in it. It has refused admittance to foreign fashions,
or admitted them only with considerable modifica-
tion of their original type. The thoroughly French
cafe you are delighted to find is still an exotic, it
only throws a few innovations into the confec-
tioner's ; the completely German speisekeller, it is
a pleasure to remark, does not flourish, not getting
much beyond oysters ; nay, even the American
bar-room, with its gay decorations and elaborate
apparatus, is chastened and, so to speak, sobered ;
much subdued in light and colour, it retires into
back shops and premises so unobtrusive that often
it is only known to the initiated. In this resist-
ance to foreign institutions there may be much'
that is merely provincial, but something must also
be ascribed to a kindred and commendable preju-
dice against things un-English, as there is an evi-
dent adherence to the national character in greater
matters. The way of conducting business is quiet
and orderly ; in New York it is a race, everybody
appears to be running over each other, and the
bustle of its traffic looks at times like a scramble.
The city is not finished, and its people have never
done work ; they are restless and feverish, always
pulling down and building up, pressed for space,
and ready to move Acheron to obtain it, digging
two storeys below the street, and throwing up six
floors toward Heaven in as many weeks, ruthlessly
demolishing, but restoring with marvellous ra-
pidity. Boston has done with all that ;it has
passed through the cycles of change and renova-
tion New York has yet to fulfil ; having taken its
permanent form, it has only to extend outwardly,
without continually tearing its interior to pieces to
remodel it. It has not the immense commerce of
New York, but, relatively, the arrangements it
has established fsr conducting it appear more
complete than those of the metropolis. A more
perfect waterside quarter suffices to prevent the
traffic from running over into and choking the
thoroughfares ; the streets belong to the public,
while in New York the community is, to a
most inconvenient extent, ignored, and the front-
age sections of the public ways aro appro-
priated by somebody as their private premises.
Boston, as it now exists, promises to endure. The
abundance of granite in the State has favoured a
very solid, though rather rough style of building.
Many of the warehouses have a massive rugged ex-
terior ; but they are what they appear to be, not
brick imposed on the world as marble by architec-
tural veneering. There can be no doubt of their
substantiality ; this is indeed the characteristic of
the city, and the tourist disposed to find resem-
blances may note that too as an English quality.
Another feature of Boston that may be even more
confidently claimed as a trace of the old country is
the arrangement or non-arrangement of the streets,
which display the true Saxon contempt of plan and
uniformity. They have grown up and extended
according to the caprice of the builders and the ne-
cessary concessions to individual property, with a
striking freedom and independence of each other,
which has produced lanes, courts, alleys, nooks,
and no thoroughfares, the duplicates of which may
he found in any old English city. In this respect
Boston is Saxon, New York is Roman, and has
been controlled ever since it began to spread, so
that beyond its origin al boundaries it is all uniform,
with straight lines and right angles, like the roads
of a town section of the interior. Boston is a la-
byrinth in which you lose yourself, and say, "how
Eoglish." The streets, too, are named, not num-
bered, an innovation Boston rejects or cannot
adopt, not having that regular order which must
pre-exist to render the system of numbering pos-
sible. It is a most convenient plan where it can
be adopted ; the only advantage of the old method
is that it compensates for its intricacy by recalling
much of the history of a place, its celebrated names,
and many of its traditions, to all which mere arith-
metic is fatal.

PECULIARITIES OF BOSTON.

The chief peculiarity of Boston is the singular
blending of land and water around it. There were
great capabilities for making it a Rotterdam, or
even a Venice, but the preference for land has
decided against any striking similiarity to them,
and the waters have long begun to be driven back
from the city and out of it by embankments and
filling up of the estuaries, to gain space for more
solid foundations. Still, whichever way you go,
there are bridges, Causeways, ferries, viaducts, and
water on every hand. Four peninsulas project
from the continent, in the recess of a spacious bay,
and, converging, almost lay their heads together.
Boston Proper is the centre of a group of four
towns, divided by three narrow channels, through
which four rivers fall into the harbour. The three
suburbs of Charlestown, South Boston, and East
Boston, thus divided from the great parent city,
are struggling to be joined with it, and in every
direction across the, unfortunately, shallow waters
of these lake-like estuaries and creeks, the threads
and lines of communication are thrown out ; 12
railway viaducts cross them from various points to
the mainland, stretching away north, south, and
west ; some of these lines intersect ie mid-water.
Seen from an elevation, like that of the obelisk on
Bunker's-hill, the puffing engine and its train ap-
pear to be gliding over the surface on a lino of
road just wide enough to take the wheels and no
more. There are besides causeways for horse car-
riages, horse railroads, and steam ferries. But the
day is not distant when some of the inner waters
will be completely dammed out and filled up.
Portions of them appear conscious of the coming
change, and preparing for it—being shallow, semi-
aqueous, and green with sedges and rush. Such
spaces, so near a large population, are two valu-
able to be long left to the ducks. The dotted lines
of the surveyor are already upon them, and even
on parts of the outer bay itself, over which also a
bold curve of a railroad has swept. Much that is
now water will in a few years be the sites of streets.
All the 'city wharves and several large tracks of
ground long built upon have been thus gained.
Such a power of expansion is even more wanted
at New Yotk, which may also be considered
as three cities, though Jersey, on the main-
land, is another State. But the arms of the
sea that divide the metropolis from Jersey and
from Brooklyn, on long Island, cannot be bridged,
and any closer junction than can be made by steam
ferryboats is forbidden, which is a grievous disad-
vantage. The entrance to the bay or harbour of
Boston is studded with islands and islets, some 50
In nutnLer, which are a good natural defenee.
They are said to be gradualry wasting on the. north
and east, where they ate
exposed to the heavy
Surge of the
Atlantic, which continually washes
away the soil, reducing them at last to naked rocks.
Whole grazing eronnds of former days have thus
disappeared. With herl western prairies America
can afford the loss.
tn the centre and heart of the
city is the Cousteou
9 humbly named, for it is
really a park with walks°
andaf and avenues of elms,
ornamental water,
been
j
fountain intain ; all weir kept
and cared for. It always public property,
and encroachment on it has been
It has also escaped the merciless
e alevelling
e swi sht lh.
sweeps the surface of most American cities so un-
sparingly. It is actually undulating a piece of the
native forest, a little trimmed, framed in with
dwellings of the wealthier kind, which it
no doub t
helps to retain there. It ie but 50 acres in extent
but, where it is, well worth 50,000 in Kansas.
It
contains also one of the original and historical
monuments of the city, one of the true antiquities
of America, which are rather to be foundin nature
than art. It is the " old elm ;" its precise age is
not known, but it was a large tree before the colony
was settled. It has begun to show signs of decay,
but byplugging the hollow of its trunk, and bracing
ta limbs up with iron supports, total ruin has been