The Portland daily press., 1883-07-27
Growth and Decay of Summer Re
sorts.
Bow Their Popularity and Their Prosper
ity is Destroyed.

Nothing is more remarkable in the history
of American summering than the number
of new resorts which are discovered and
taken possession of by s'the city people, ev-
cry year, the rapid increase in the means of
transportation both to the mountains and
the sea, and the steady encroachments of
the Cottager on the Boarder in all the more
desirable resorts. We called attention to
this subject last year, and it every year
grows ii Importance. The growth of the
American watering place, indeed, now
seems to be as much regulated by law as the
growth of asparagus or strawberries, and is
almost as easy to foretell. The place is usu-
ally first discovered by artists in search of
sketches, or by family of small means in
search of pure air, and milk fresh from the
COW, and liberty-not to say license-in the
matter of dress. Its development then be-
gins by the neighboring farmers agreeing to
take them to board-a thing he has never
done before, and does now unwillingly, and
he is very uncertain what to charge for it.
But at a venture he fixes what seems to him
an enormous sum-say SIS 70 81 week for
each adult. His ideas about food for city
people are, however, very vague. The only
thing about their tastes of which he feels
certain is that what they seek in the country
is, above all things, change, and that they
accordingly do not desire what they get at
home. Accordingly he furnishes them with
a complete set of novelties in the matter of
food and drink, forgetting, however, that
they might have got them at home if they
pleased. The tea and coffee and bread diff
fer from what they are used to at home sim
ply in being worse. He is, too, at the sea-
side, very apt to put them on an exclusively
fish diet, in the belief that it is only people
who live by the sea who get fish, and that
city people, weary of meat, must be longing
for fish. The boarders, this first summer,
having persuaded him to take them, are of
course too modest to demonstrate, or even
to hint. and 60 on to the,end eating what is
set before them, and pretending to be thank
full, and try TO keep up their failing strength
by being great deal in the open air, and
admiring the scenery. After they leave, he
is apt to De astenished by the amount of
cash he finds himself possessed of, probably
more than he ever handled before at one
time, except when he mortgaged his farm,
and comes to the conclusion that taking sum-
mer boarders is an excellent thing, and
worth cultivating.
In the next stage he seeks them, and per-
haps is emboldened by the advice of some
body to advertise the place, and try to get
hold of some editors or ministers whose
names he can use as references, and who
will talk it up. He soon secures one or two
of each, and they then tell him that his
house is frequented By intellectual or .cul-
tured" people; and he becomes more elated
and more enterprising, enlarges the dining
room, adds on wing, relieves his wife of
the cooking by hiring woman in the near
est town, and gives more meat and stronger
aoffaa and lfffIa nv iitflo into n no
tel-keeper, with an Office and a register. His
neighbors, startled by his success. follow his
example, it may be only lOng0 interUalt0,
and soon the place becomes regular ''re-
Sort" with girls and boys in white flannel,
lawn-tennis (which succeeds croquet), liv-
cry stable, stages, an ice-cream store with
soda water fountain, a new church, and
with strange names taken out of books for
the neighboring hills, and lanes, and brooks.
This stage may last for years-in some
places it has been known to last thirty or
forty without any change, beyond the open
ing of new hotels-and it becomes marked
by crowds of people who go back every year
in the character of old boarders, get the
best rooms, and are on familiar terms of
friendship with the proprietor and the older
waiter girls. But it may be brought to a
close, and is now being brought to a close in
scores of American watering places, by the
appearance of the Cottager, who has become
to the Boarder what the red squirrel is to
the gray, ruthless invader and extermina-
tor. The first Cottager is almost always a
Boarder, so that there is no means of discov-
ering his approach and resisting his advances.
In nine cases out of ten he is simple guest
at the farm house or the hotel, without any
discoverable airs or pretensions, on whom
the scenery makes such an impression that
he quietly buys lot with fine view. The
next year he builds a cottage on it, and grad
ually, and 1t may be at first impercepti5ly,
separates himself in feeling and in stand
ards from his fellow-boarders The wear af-
ter he is in the cottage, and the mischief is
done. The change has come. Caste has
been established, with all its attendant evils.
The community, once so simple and homo
geneous, is now divided into two classes,
one CT which looks down on the other
More cottages are built, with trim lawns
and private lawn-tennis grounds, with
"shandy. gaff' and "tennis cup' concealed
on tables in tents. Then the dog-cart with
the groom in buckskin and boots, the Irish
red setter, the saddle horse with the banged
tail, the phaeton with the two ponies, the
Young men in knickerbockers carrying i'm
ported racquets, the girls with the banged
hair, the club, ostenslbly for newspaper
reading, but really for secret fixes and soda
cocktails, make their appearance, with nu-
merous other monarchcal excrescences.
The original farmer, whose pristine board
was the beginning of all this, has probably
by this time sold enough land to the Gotta
gers to enable him to give up taking BOARD