OUR COUNTRY is young among nations, but it is old enough to have witnessed the rise and decline of towns whose stories are fruitful of useful lessons, if people would only heed them. Let us take a single example and call it Bolton. The place seems to have steadily declined, while others in the neighborhood, with fewer and less important advantages, have maintained or increased their prosperity. Social causes have no doubt to some extent produced these disastrous results; but why have they worked such evils here and failed to injure other places no more blameless ? I maintain that it is because the Boltonians have followed false prophets and neglected and disfigured their natural advantages.

All towns, old and young, wish to add to the number of their desirable inhabitants, and resort to different methods of attracting strangers, and from these methods result glorification or ruin. The means in use at Bolton at one time attracted wealth and numbers, but refinement was not encouraged; the natural beauties were destroyed and replaced by no artificial ones. The broad, liberal and aesthetic policy inaugurated by the early inhabitants has been contracted or abandoned until in this generation the evils of the present policy are apparent to all; yet they cling to worse than dubious ways. Had the town been kept attractive, it would have drawn more than the wealth that has been employed to corrupt politics and society, and it would maintain its former high standing instead of being a reproach to its inhabitants.

Let us take a short review of its history, which runs back over two eventful centuries. The first proprietors, unlike those of most of our later towns, were men of wealth, refinement and education, liberal in their ideas beyond their own and our times, and able to make a practicable application of them as fine as it was unusual. Situated on a beautiful and well-wooded peninsula jutting into an arm of the Atlantic ocean, Bolton has a climate equalled by that of few places on our coast. Over two hundred years ago a royal engineer from England laid out a beautiful town, with wide streets at right angles, or in graceful, sweeping curves to conform to the topography of the district. Wise restrictions were placed upon builders, and although the land was valuable private property from the first, the proprietors gave a large and beautiful "common" for the use of the public as long as the town shall stand. Succeeding generations have allowed buildings to be erected on parts of this along some the street fronts, obstructing the view, occupying the land and presenting to the common the backs of foul and unsightly structures; and this was done while there was plenty of land the occupation of which would have preserved one of the beauties of the town.

An old ordinance wisely declares that the streets running to the water should be kept open to the public forever. The beauty and fresh air the town derives from this source are a self-evident blessing. Yet the town itself violates this good provision by placing unsightly wooden buildings on the water fronts of two of the most populous streets.

The first proprietors set off a portion of their land, the income from which was to be devoted to the maintenance of schools. At first the only rental derived from it was a small one from pasturage or farming land, but the generation now living conceived the idea that by running streets through it and giving longer leases to householders the income could be increased. This idea, excellent in itself, was so miserably carried out, by cutting the district up into narrow lanes and miserable alley-ways,, that only a poor class of people who are able to pay only small rents can be induced to live there, and as these have their leases the hope of improvement by adopting a better plan seems shut out for years.

The early inhabitants practiced horticulture successfully and profitably; fruit was abundant and the large surplus realized good returns when sent to other places. Now it is doubtful if anything in the way of fruit, except a few strawberries, ever finds its way to market from here. Although the few farmers and gardeners pay far more than their proportionate share of the taxes, their property being in full view and assessed at its full value, for it cannot be easily hidden from the assessors like stocks or bonds, yet so poor is the protection of the local police and so lenient the public sentiment towards fruit stealing, that the owners of once profitable orchards have cut them down rather than submit to depredations they could not prevent except by using firearms or maintaining a corps of watchmen.

No place in America once raised such root crops as Bolton, and no one was without employment who was willing to engage in their cultivation. Their potatoes and onions always found sale in the West Indies, even if not in our own cities. But the inhabitants, almost without exception, united in supporting the policy of that political party that has so effectually destroyed American commerce and given it to foreigners, until no vessels were found to transport their crops, and a once profitable industry died. The noble harbor no long shelters the craft that brought the people the riches of the tropics in exchange for their productions. The ruined wharves and decaying warehouses tell the story no less plainly than the grass-grown gardens and pastured fields, once models of cultivation and sources of abundance. A few old cultivators still continue their occupation, though it is unprofitable, but they can do nothing else. The young and enterprising have sought employment in other places, and the descendants of some of those who once flourished as the owners of the well tilled grounds, after vainly trying to stem the tide of fate, have become operatives in the factories that have been fostered to their cost.

If the manufacturers bought what these people could produce, then they would have less cause of complaint; but the wealth and tastes of the upper class induce them to get the best from foreign countries, while the poverty of the gardener, operative and farmer compels them to purchase what they can get near at hand.