Delaware state journal. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1870-1883, 1881-01-27
ACRES AND ACRES OF ASHES
Something About the Famous
South End"
B0ST0N'S PECULIAR INFLUENCE
How They Affect all Who Have Once
Lived There Why the Young
Men Of New England Seek
it and Why Natives
Leave II.
ON HILL AND COMMON


BosToN, Jan. ~ As / sit at my desk.
merry shouts aud gleeful laughter OF
childish voices come to my esrs through
the clesed windows, from the vacant
lot near the back of our house, which
the SHOWS of winter have converted into
the gayest kind of gala ground for the
children of the neighborhood.
This South End of the HUB is fiat
country, with neither the advantages or
the disadvantages of hilly region. This
South end Is also largely composed of
made land" as housekeepers In thous-
ands of our best houses ON our finest
streets know to their inconyenience-to
say the least-whenever it thaws or rains
hard and their Easements are more or less
overfiowed with water, which rises up
from the doubtful regions beneath the
soil of ashes and debris on which the
buildings stand. Very many of our first
class houses have no cellars at all, for the
excellent reason that there's nothing TO dig
them in and 10 many houses which do
rejoice in these appendages to housekeep-
ing conveniences. / have been told that it
is no unusual thing to find the ash-bsrrel
floating about of q morning in Jolly
fashion, and to have to strain the coal in a
sieve before replenishing the furnace fire.
And then people wonder at diphtheria,
and can't think where it comes from,
Fortunately our house is situated on
THE Neck" as it used to be called in the
days of old Boston and old Roxbury, (now
Boston Highlands when the two were
connected by the narrow isthmus, which
was mile in length, and $50 narrow and
low between tide-washed fiais that it was
often submerged" as an old writer once
said. Still it is real land, though it isn't
safe to say too much 10 boastful fashion,
for our back yard is only ACHES, and the
threshold of our back gate has an uneasy
tendency to sink China wards.
The amount OF our artificial land may
be better estimated by figures, I suppose,
so l will add here that whereas this blessed
little peninsula once contained but 7S3
acres, two miles at greatest length by one
ir EXTREMIST breadth, it now consists of
1929 acres, this once narrowest point of
the city being now the very brosdest, the
wide, oozy salt marshes, the estuaries,
coverts and bays once stretching wide on
its northern aud southern bounds having
now been reclaimed" as the phrase goes,
to represent the Mrs. Partingtou act OF
sweeping out the ocean with the broom
of improvement, from our ambitious front
doors.
Lest you should under estimate the
extent of present Boston, with its modern
additions as well as improvements, will
say by way of psrenthess, that since we
gobbled up Charlestown, Roxbury aud the
other neighnoring small fry we measure
some 80 661 acres. So never call us
one-horse town again, if you please. Aud
besides, if we're not as big as New York
or London, we're-well, there's an indes-
oribable something about us that acts ss
an irresistible magnet to all who have once
felt our effect.
In letter received to-day, from home
sick Bostonisn, two years absent in Color
ado where his unreliable lungs have exiled
him, he exclaims: Dear, old conserva-
tive Boston You may roam the wild
world over and get nothing to compensate
for absence therefrom." And one of the
brightest literary women that the big
West has produced, who came here last
fall us to the VEGA of all her earthly
desires-and who forthwith got a first
class position on certain Boston daily
that had never before been persuaded TO
take woman on its statf-told me that
for weeks after getting here, ths first
thought that came to her upon waking
every morning was, ''sm / really in Bos-
ton, or is it all dream"
While certain enthusiastic gentleman,
whose home is in one OF the largest and
best of the Western States, writes me in
reply to o letter in which consoientiously
endeavored to throw cold water on his
feverish ardor for Eastern migration. "If
didn't know better, / should think you
wete SO exclusive as not to want to share
with Westernsrs the beneiits of culture
possessed by the Hub over any other city
OF which have knowledge. No; don't
thipk my impressions of your city are of
too ideal character; for what l have
Seen aud learned when there, has given
me sn insight into what our Western
people are pleased TO ssresstically denomi-
nate 'cuichGw.' An Eden is certainly
more TO he desired than is sandy, arid
desert, So, for educational purposes, in
all that pertains to the liberal arts and
scienc0s, is the place where they rise and
| come TO perfection"
make the above quotations Just to
show you what a powerful charm this
little peninsula (and sshes) city wields
over the imaginatioDs of those who have
fallen undor It's spell, Those who are
Boston. crazy musi go 10 Boston or die.
fhsres 10 two ways about it. Boston
sl~aye acts as n peri ct loadstone to draw
ali the sui4flt st and best young people out
of She State of Maine. Nearly ell our
most successful business men and large
| proportion of our professional men are
from Maine. Bat our OWL young people
60 West.
/ Boston has 10 such charms for them.
The homesiak consumption III Colorado, by
the way, ID only au adopted originality
from Maine. We who were born and
brought up here often find that the
Wanted Athens will not give US any
chance to grow up and out of the estate TO
which We were born, aud to give our smbi-
tion free air in which 10 try its wings. We
have to leays the Hub, dear as it is to us
al birthplace and home.
| | write perhaps as l feel on this point,
somewhat bitterly-for probably in
another year 1 may be very many miles
ewsy from my own home, because therein
/ the opening is roS given 10 a certain lucra-
tvs and honorable career which most of
the Western and some of the conservative
old Middle States freely offer.
Rnt have s!rayed long ways from the
childish voices wbich opened my letter,
and which have now ceased, as the hour is
past that when ell GOOD children are abed.
The mention Of made land was suggested
| ny the fact which l was about to explain,
OF the rsre opportunity in this part OF the
city, for coast" it resulting from
! slight declivity from the street level to that
OF the vacant lot, lot yet graded up.
| lu the West End, on Beacon Hill, there
are grand coasts down all the narrow
! streets, aud many are the "reminiscences
connected Herewith in connection with
/ tine tom. boyish days of my childhood.
when we lived on The Hill, and when I
was the happy possessor of very danny
giris sled-I always wanted boys sled
! instead hut they wouldn't let me have
one-which used to laboriously drag up
hill for tine fun Of coasting down. Isn't
that ABOUT the way we do In both the busi-
ness and the pleasure of after life?
Boston Common is the grand place for
cossting, however. II is a perfect car
nival every evening, and during much of
the day. Public locometion is greatly
impeded thereby, it ia true, and to attempt
10 pedestrianize on this sacred enclosure
while snow is on the ground, Is to be
almost certainly tripped up by sled or
run down by ''double.runner," which
latter engine of speed is no light affair,
with its long-carpeted board swivelled on
| 20 two strong sleds and carrying load of
six TO ten boys.
But the right to coast on Boston Com
mon is sacred and inalienable to Boston
boys.