[Illustration: LIFTING ITS TOWER FROM THE BRINK OF THE WITHAM]
There was no great token of genteel life in Boston, so far as we
saw it, but perhaps we did not look in the right places. There
were good shops, but not fine or large ones, and I am able to
report of the intellectual status that there are three weekly
newspapers, but no dailies, which could not be the case in any
American town of fourteen thousand people. Concerning society, I
can only say that in our wanderings we came at one point on a
vast, high-walled, iron-gated garden, which looked as if it might
have society beyond it, but not being positively forbidden we did
not penetrate it. We did indeed visit the ancient grammar-school,
one of those foundations which in England were meant originally
for the poor deserving of scholarship, but which have nearly all
lapsed to the more deserving rich, careful of the contamination
of the lower classes. Being out of term the school was closed to
its pupils, but we found a contractor there removing the old
stoves and putting in a system of hot-water heating, which he
said was better fitted to resist the cold of the Boston winters.
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