Evening star., 1905-08-22
BOSTON DRAWS FEWER VISITORS
Marked Falling Off This Year in Its
Popularity as a Summer Resort.

From the Boston Transcript.
Boston, without abating one jot or tit
tie of it's reputation as a summer resort,
is this summer losing some round num-
berS of it's usual summer reSorters. That
is, they are measurably conspicuous
through absence. So many of them came
and saw and were seen last summer and
summer before last, and some of the sum-
mers before then. that now, when the
great crowds of vacationists are going in
other directions. we miss them.
People who within the past month have
noted groups of visitors wandering about
the Old Granary burying ground, or lin
gering over that curious rosette in the
pavement of State street where Crispus
AttuckS fell, may have taken 1t as sign
that Boston was filing with western tour
lists of yore, but the managers of ho-
tells and restaurants and the caretakers
of public buildings and shrines of historic
interest know full we'll that the summer
throng this year has been only fraction
of what it was two years ago and has
fallen considerably below what it was
last summer
One need do nothing more than look
over some of the registration books tour
lists and that sort of visitors are wont to
write their names in in order to realize
the tourist deficit of the present summer.
OF course, all western or foreign tourists
visit Faneuil Hall when they come to
Boston. In 1903 in the month of July.
5,42O persons registered there. In the
same month of last year there were 1855; !;
while in the July just past there were
only 1916. 1t is the same story at the
Museum of Fine Arts. While July of 1903
brought 39,454 visitors and July of 1904
brought 1854. the number in the July
past was only 1868. Four hundred more
people went to the top of Bunker Hill
monument in July a year ago than in
July of this year, and while round
100 persons registered at the Old State
House in July, 1904, barely more than
1860 have followed their example in the
last month.
True these registrations represent
hardly more than third of the people
who hover over and around the registra-
ton books; but it seems fair to assume
that the proportion of those who write
their names will remain fairly constant
And where no records are kept those in
charge of public buildings have noted a
falling off in attendance this year. Even
the Public Library feels the difference
Though there are people in the corridors
all the time there are no such throngs
as crowded the place day after day last
year and year before. And the slghtsee-
ing trolleys, pretty sure indicator of
the tide of vacationists. have never num-
bered more than eight or ten cars day
SO far this season, whereas for many days
last year and year before the number of
cars required often ran to fifty or sixty
and above.
Yet, after all there is nothing surpris-
ing in the falling off. 1t simply means
that Boston has had very few conven-
tions this year. For several years past
there have been either one or two large
conventions or a number OF smaller ones,
so arranged that they brought into the
city an almost continuous stream or peo-
pie from west and south.
Aside from the matter OF conventions,
the Lewis and Clark exposition at Port
land Ore has done much to set the tide
of travel this summer westward instead
Of eastward.