The city of Boston has a population of six hundred thousand, and the centre around which it clusters is the well-known Boston Common, set apart in 1634, and always jealously reserved for public uses, the surface rising upon its northern verge towards Beacon Hill. No matter by what route approached, the city has the appearance of a broad cone with a wide-spreading base, ascending gradually to the bulb-like apex of the gilded State House dome. Occasionally a tall building looms above the mass, or it is surmounted by church-spires and the fanciful towers of modern construction, or by a high chimney pouring out black smoke; but it is a symmetrical scene in the general view, though in many parts the surface of the actual city is very uneven. The Common rises towards the State House from the south and west by a graceful plane interspersed with hillocks. It is crossed by many pleasant walks, and has broad open spaces used for sports and military displays. It is rich in noble old trees, and covers nearly fifty acres, while to the westward is an additional level park of half the size, known as the Public Garden, separated by a wide street accommodating the cross-town traffic. This noted Boston Common was the ancient Puritan pasture-ground, and it is rich in traditions. In the colonial wars, the captured hostile Indians were put to death here, their grinning heads impaled on stakes for a public warning. Murderers were gibbeted, witches burnt and duels fought here. The impassioned George Whitefield, in the middle of the eighteenth century, preached here to a congregation of twenty thousand. An English traveller in the late seventeenth century described the place as "a small but pleasant Common where the gallants, a little before sunset, walk with their marmalet-madams till the bell at nine o'clock rings them home." Sometimes it was a fortified camp, and it was always a pleasure-ground, while during the great fire of 1872, which destroyed the chief business section with property valued at $70,000,000, enormous piles of hastily saved goods filled the eastern portions next to Tremont Street, bounding it on that side. Beacon Street is the northern border and Boylston Street the southern, there being rows of stately elms upon the walks along these streets and the pathways leading across the Common in various directions.
Flagstaff Hill, the most prominent eminence, near the centre of the Common, is surmounted by the Soldiers' Monument, rising ninety feet, with a colossal statue of America on the apex, overlooking the city. It was designed by Milmore, and is one of the most imposing memorials of the Civil War in the country. Nearby stood the "Old Elm," which was much older than the city, and was blown down in 1876. The adjacent sheet of water is the noted "Frog Pond" of colonial memory, and dear to the hearts of all old Bostonians. Near the northeastern boundary the Brewer Fountain, famous for its magnificent bronzes, the munificent gift of a prominent citizen, pours out its limpid waters. A colossal equestrian statue of Washington adorns the Public Garden. These attractive grounds are additionally embellished by tasteful little lakes, statues and lovely floral displays. On the southern side of the Common is the old Central Burying-Ground, which contains the grave of Gilbert Stuart, the portrait painter, who died in 1828. Beneath the edge of the Common on the southern and eastern sides is the great Subway, which crosses Boston, giving needed relief to the congested traffic, and was completed in 1898 at a cost of nearly $5,000,000, a most commodious, airy and well-lighted tunnel, accommodating many lines of electric cars, and providing speedy transit across the crowded city.
THE STATE HOUSE.
The famous Boston State House, fronting on Beacon Street at the summit of the hill, stands upon ground which, in the eighteenth century, was John Hancock's cow-pasture, his residence, for many years alongside, having been replaced by the ornamental "swell-fronts" of the Somerset Club. This rounded construction, known as the swell-front, is a distinctive feature of the old-time Boston residential architecture, and in many buildings the effect is heightened by the luxuriant overrunning vines of the Boston ivy, which is especially fine in the autumn. A Corinthian portico fronts the State House, which was built about the beginning of the nineteenth century, but has since been repeatedly enlarged, the latest extension being completed in 1898, so that the whole building is now four hundred by two hundred and twelve feet, the lantern on the dome rising one hundred and fifty feet. Upon the terrace in front are statues of Daniel Webster and Horace Mann. The eastern side of the last extension has a small park, and here, on top of Beacon Hill, has been erected a reproduction, practically on the original site, of the Beacon Monument, which was put there in 1790 to commemorate the success of the Revolution, but was removed in 1812. Within the State House is the Memorial Hall, containing the battle-flags of Massachusetts regiments and other historical relics. Portraits, busts and statues of the great men of Massachusetts adorn the interior rooms. From the lantern surmounting the dome is the finest view of Boston, with the mass of estuaries penetrating the land on all sides, the harbor and islands, and over the neighboring country for many miles. In the Representatives' Chamber hangs, high on the wall, one of the precious relics of the Old Bay State, the noted carved codfish, typifying a great industry. In the original State House preceding this one, down on Washington Street, in the heart of the older town, on March 17, 1785, Representative Rowe—who is also said to have been the suggester of throwing the tea overboard in Boston harbor—according to the minutes moved, "That leave might be given to hang up the representation of a codfish in the room where the House sit, as a memorial of the importance of the cod-fishery to the welfare of the Commonwealth, as had been usual formerly." Leave was accordingly given, and this emblem was brought in time to the present State House and hung on the wall, and it has always been an object of interest to visitors, not only as emblematic of sundry fishery problems that perplex the statesmen, but also as recalling a question always of lively interest in New England and elsewhere, "Does the codfish salt the ocean, or the ocean salt the codfish?" Another great treasure is held by the State Library, which has a hundred thousand volumes; and the chief of its possessions, exhibited under glass, is the "History of the Plimouth Plantation," popularly known as the "Log of the 'Mayflower,'" written by Governor William Bradford. This manuscript, discovered in London in 1846, was presented to Massachusetts in 1898.
NOTABLE BOSTON ATTRACTIONS.
A ramble through the older parts of Boston discloses many objects of interest. Near the northern edge of the Common, at the corner of Park and Tremont Streets, is the old "Brimstone Corner," where stands the citadel of orthodoxy, the Puritan meeting-house, Park Street Church. Adjoining is an ancient graveyard, the "Old Granary Burying-Ground," where lie the remains of some of the most famous men of Boston, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, James Otis, Peter Faneuil, many of the colonial Governors, and also the parents of Benjamin Franklin, a prominent monument marking the graves of the latter. The rows of ancient, dark-looking and half-effaced gravestones in this quiet burial-place, in one of the busiest parts of the city, are an antique novelty. Many noted buildings are near it—Tremont Temple, the Horticultural and Music Halls, the Athenæum, and not far away, fronting Pemberton Square, the massive County Court-house of granite in Renaissance style, four hundred and fifty feet long, having in its imposing central hall a statue of Rufus Choate. On Tremont Street was established the first Episcopal Church in Boston, the King's Chapel, the present building replacing the original one in 1754. Adjacent is the oldest burying-place of the colony, where lie the remains of Governor John Winthrop and his sons, with other early settlers. Most of the old gravestones in this yard have been taken away from the graves and reset in strange fashion as edge-stones along the paths. One of these odd old stones of a greenish hue marked the grave of William Paddy, dying in 1658. In an unique poetical effusion it records these quaint words:
"Hear sleaps that blessed one
Whoes lief God help us all
To live that so when tiem shall be
That we this world must liue,