s to be hoped ere-long that the intelligent and public-spirited
citizens of our towns and cities will cause now and then a good
foot-walk to be constructed, where it would shorten the distance
from one place to another, and possibly pass through pleasant fields
and woods, and over hills commanding beautiful and extensive views.
It is not pleasant to walk in the dust and publicity of highways,
nor on gravel walks in artificial parks, where sign-boards and
policemen warn you frequently to "keep off the grass."

Before our towns and cities spend any more money building boulevards
and opening new parks, would it not be well for them to consider the
advisability of laying out some foot-paths for the comfort and
convenience of pedestrians? At any rate, foot-paths could be made
alongside of the road-bed of some of the public ways, so that every
pedestrian would not of necessity have to trudge along in the dust
or mud incident to the middle of the road.

CHAPTER XVIII.

WITHIN AND WITHOUT THE ROADSIDE.

Besides the legal duty every dweller by a highway is under, to use
it with due regard to the rights of the public, he is under a moral
and Christian obligation to maintain order and neatness within and
without his roadside. The occupations and amenities of life are so
interwoven and intermixed that no one can live for himself alone
with justice to himself or to society. There is something in the
very nature of things which makes for the reward of unselfish
exertion and for the condemnation of selfish acts. "Whosoever shall
seek to save his life, shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his
life, shall preserve it." Public spirit, like virtue, is its own
exceeding great reward. When one benefits the community in which he
lives, he thereby also benefits himself; and when he is possessed of
the right kind of a public spirit, he will beautify and improve his
homestead and his roadside, and will even throw the cobble-stones
out of the roadway in front of his house without compensation or
even hope of financial reward.

When he plants a tree for the sole purpose of doing something for
posterity, and then watches its growth and expansion from day to day
until he becomes familiar with its varied aspects in sunny and in
stormy weather, and finally, walking beneath its cooling shade and
seeing its limbs swaying gracefully over surrounding objects, his
heart goes out towards it with a feeling of tenderness and love, and
he fe