The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1881-08-27
AN OUTLOOK.
Good Words for Our City.

Portland is evidently going ahead. This is
less apparent to those who go their daily
round to their places of business
than to outside observers who have
better opportunity of judging after years of
absence. There is no hazard in saying that
among commercial cities the general appear
ance of thrift is more marked in Portland than
in any other locality on the coast with possibly
one or two exceptions. This is specially no
ticeable in the number of elegant residenc es
which beautify the city and make it so attract
i've to strangers. No remark is more common
from visitors than that Portland has alarger
number of elegant houses than any city of its
size in the country. Everything about them
is indicative of wealth. refinement and con-
tent. In the main they are owned by their
occupants, were built for permanent homes,
and never suggest the idea of landlord and
tenant or shifting population. Those who re-
side in them appear to have come to stay.
Quite as remarkable is the change manifest in
the stores and warehouses of recent construc-
ton
Congress street has undergone almost an en-
tire revolution in this respect as respects the
retail trade. The stores recently constructed
are capacious and attractive. The number of
people which traverse Congress street now as
compared with five years ago is very striking
proof OF an upward movement. This may in
part be attributed to a transfer from one local
lty to another, but does not account for the
demand for larger accommodations for the re-
tall trade. The necessary inference from this
general outlook from two pivotal points is that
our city is pushing forward, not rapidly in
population like some manufacturing centres,
but growing with healthy pace and giving as
surance OF prosperity, solidity and perma-
nency. Observations at other points will more
than support the view thus taken. Facts are
not at hand to demonstrate this, but an in
quirer has only to ask any wholesale dealers in
dry goods and groceries as to their present bus
mess contrasted with the condition five years
ago, to be doubly assured that Portland is
on the upward grade. These observations are
the more pertinent and inspiring from the fact
that this is largely commercial city whose
former principal industry has suffered in COM
mon with the general commerce of the coun-
try.
DuV hotWl1Hotauuiu5 tuo ofluoHCoo VI oup
stantial growth, and in the face of obstacles
which have had some tendency to discourage
ment, the voice of the croaker is not unfre-
quently heard, which is as mischievous as it is
unpleasant Our city and State have some
thing to learn from their neighbors on this
point. You never hear Boston man speak
disparagingly of "The New England Me trop-
Oils" A Boston man who should say his city
is whiting would be hustled out A Massa-
chusetts man who should intimate that the
Bay State is not the best and most honored in
the Union would be looked upon as public
enemy Local pride and general disposition to
exalt Boston and Massachusetts may have sub
jected our neighbors to some criticism, but for
all that there is no calculating the influence of
home feeling and home talk on the growth
and prosperity of cities and commemorative.
Chicago, st. Louis, San Francisco, in fact all
of the most rapidly growing cities make boast
ing of their respective localities speciality. In
Portland and Maine the tendency has been in
the opposite direction. This thing needs
correction, and the first step toward improve
ment is to call attention to the unfortunate
habit which seems to prevail of undertaking
our own position and advantages in contrast
with those found elsewhere. MAINE.