The Placer herald., 1857-11-21
Doesticks on Boston,

| ". ~. ulIduucr DOeStlcKS, L. ID. WTlleS
from Boston, on l4th August last, to the
N. Y. Picayune, describing a recent visit
made by him to that wonderful city of no.
tons. lie says:
Ninety-nine extra sized angle-worms, loco
noting at high pressure speed about gar
den-walk, of showery afternoon, and being
perpetaally turned back when they got to
the edge, and compelled to cross each others
trail in innumerable directions, would, if the
ground were soft and their very footsteps
plainly visible, draw on the garden-walk
aforesaid, tolerably accurate map of the
city of Boston. 1t is crookeder than nine
acres of rams horns, and has got more cor
ners than cord Of cross-cut says. You see
your friend, and you call out, "Jones, wait a
minute" and you stare to see Jones, thinking
he is just across the street. Misguided man!
far-distant Jones! You climb nine hills, and
turn ninety corners before you get within
haiing distance again! The streets look as
if they had been made somewhere else, and
dumped here in huge tangle, and nobody
had ever taken the trouble to straighten
them out again. 1t looks as if somebody
had been building lot of cities by contract,
and the job hadn't come out even, and he
had thrown down his remnants of streets,
and odd ends of alleys, and little shipped off
bits of lanes and avenues, and called it Bos-
ton. If any street in the town should be
cut straight mile in any direction, it would
go through dozen private parlors and forty
five public music halls. In fact, Boston looks
as if tirst-rate material for an excellent city
had been melted and poured through a seive
on a side hill and left to COOL
The Bostonians are very proud of their
Common" and well they may be, for it is
just such park as we would want, if we
could have one made to older-what can |
say more?
In a walk of an hour through the town,
you will see on the door plates more names
than You have heard before, and in an excur-
sion of five times the length in any other
city The habit peculiar to Bostonians when
away from home, of talking Of nothing but
themselves, explains this phenomenon.
But there is more civi.ity, kindness and
attention shown to strangers here than in
any city | ever visited | have been here
two days, and have consequently asked about
eight hundred questions, to every one Of
which | have received a civil answer, and
been treated as if were respectable homo
and not an inqulstive nuisance I've recev
ed honest change every time I've bought
anything. I've met great many little boys
not one of whom has set a dog on me- or
pelted me, or told me TO "Go in lemons" or
called me an "Old buffer" or consigned me
to that place of very warm temperature with
which the boys of other CITIES appear to be
prematurely acquainted. This latter omis-
sion was great relief, for in New York a
man is so often told by youngsters to "Go to
-" the place unmentionable, that lie
might naturally suppose the juveniles were
all employed by Satan to recommend his ac-
comodations to strangers; or that they own
ed building lots in that torrid locality, and
from interested motives were anxious to EN-.
courage immigration.
The houses don't run to seed here as in
New York; few of them grow to be more
than four or five stories high. The principal
productions of the city are tandem teams,
hackney coaches and brown bread. The
drays are curiosity, being made like the
city cars, with a joint in the middle to turn
the sharp corners. A Boston dray is about
as long as On average Boston street, and
when used at night it is lighted with gas
for the accommodation of the driver. Three
or four horses, placed tandem, drag this pom
derous machine. They are harnessed in this
manner that they may pass each other, the
streets being exceedingly narrow.
In Cincinnati they measure everything by
hogs and pigs. For instance they would say
that the Picayune office is about hundred
pigs from the City Hall, meaning that hun
dred pigs placed in line would extend that
distance. In the same way Cincinnatian
would say that the Astor House is about
twenty hogs from the Museum, or seventy
pigs from Stewards. Well, gauging Boston
by Cincinnati measurement should say that
"Washingtop" street is about four hogs wide,
fremont" street about eight or nine pigs,
and the generality of the streets where the
drays are most in use nowhere more than a
hog and shoat, or three pigs and a couple
of roasters in width. This is the reason why
the vehicles are so long and narrow, and the
horses are harnessed one after the other.
Nobody is ever in hurry iR Boston, bu.
the people 60 about as respectfully slow as if
the city was attending its own funeral.
The hotel walters are an anomaly-they
positively bring you in what you ssk for
and are SO modest about suggesting fees,
that really think that their wages are paid
by the proprietors of the houses instead of
the guests, as is the fashion in New York
This is really very comforting. For man
to order roast lamb and green peas, with a
certainty that be will not be served with
pork and onions, or to send for soup with q
probability of getting it, is sensation at
once novel and refreshing to an neividual
who has ever sojourned at a hotel in Gotham.
Goldfish is not so prevalent here as was led
to expect-I saw mono in the Frog Pond on
the Common-nor, although | was here on
Sunday, did every aristocratic mansion give