State or national politics altogether, only asking the voters' aid to reform abuses in the municipality. They formulated a well-considered plan for reorganizing the city government, put it into the form of a bill to go before the State legislature, and pledged legislative candidates to its support. They offered substantial money rewards for information leading to the arrest and punishment of persons guilty of violating the election laws, and by thus terrorizing ballot-box stuffers and personators, made honest elections possible. Finally, they laid before every voter a clear and simple statement of the cost of good and bad government, showing him, whether a great householder or a mere lodger, how many dollars per annum he personally paid for corruption in the shape of enhanced taxation. In the space of three years, the Philadelphia Committee of One Hundred has utterly destroyed the power of the ring and restored the municipal government of the city, if not to the purity of the New England Agora, then to that high condition which will become general in the States only when the natural leaders of society seek instead of shirking their public duties. CHAPTER VII. PITTSFIELD-DALTON-AN INDUSTRIAL PIONEER. STILL following the valley of the Housatonic, we found ourselves next at Pittsfield, another pretty Berkshire town, of twelve thousand inhabitants, lying in a noble expansion between the Taconic and Green Mountain ranges. Here, two branches of the river unite, but their diminished volume evidences that we are now near the head-waters of the stream which we have followed so far. We have risen nearly twelve hundred feet since beginning our journey, and have now reached a plateau whence the surrounding mountains lose much of their grandeur, and give graceful rather than sublime outlines to the landscape. We had already noticed in several towns that the fashion of surrounding private houses with boundary walls and fences is apparently passing away in New England, and this revolution has been actually accomplished in the best residential streets of Pittsfield. Their villa-like dwellings are set back some distance t from the roadway, and occupy a lawn, which is common to them all. This is tastefully planted with ornamental trees, and extends backwards from the road for a considerable distance, dying out in the open country beyond.. The public footway, or sidewalk, runs, like a gardenpath, through the sward, and is profusely shaded with maples. Nothing can be prettier than the general effect. of this arrangement, which gives the idea of a large community of friendly homes, scattered over the surface of a wooded park, while trim figures and bright dresses, moving hither and thither among the trees, or grouped here and there on the grass, lend a Watteau-like air to the picture. The greater exposure of the house to the public view under this system is producing an excellent effect on domestic architecture in New England. Tasteful dwellings are becoming common where, only a few years ago, nothing was to be seen better than the plain or pretentious wooden structures which the fashion of the moment favoured. Fashion in house architecture has changed so often in America, that it is easy to recognize a succession of styles, extending from colonial times to the present day. In the former period, for example, the houses of the wealthy were universally large square buildings, having many windows, an ample columned portico, a wide front door with a shell shaped fanlight above, and moderately sloping roofs.. Afterwards, came a sham classic style, lasting from about This 1810 to 1820, when the plain citizen tried to make his house look as much like the Parthenon as was possible with pine boards. Later still, the Gothic carpenter was let loose in New England, and he, between 1845 and 1855, tacked crude tracery or sham arches of plank to the windows and gables of every new building. style is one of the least happy efforts of the American architect. Between 1855 and 1865, a curious rage set in for a box-like house, with a flat, sheet-iron roof, overhanging like a lid, which, if duly provided with hinges, would prove a capital arrangement for any American Devil on Two Sticks. This fashion gave way, about 1865, to an Italian villa style, distinguished by broken surfaces, many roofs, and wide-eaved towers, recalling memories of the Riviera in the prosaic streets of New England. There followed, in 1870, a French house, with mansard roofs, dormer windows and a profusion of surface ornament, which kept the floor until, finally, our own Queen Anne has won all hearts. The last change appears to have resulted from the pretty buildings erected for the English Commissioners at the Centennial Exhibition and, as the new style has been cleverly used and is, structurally, very suitable to wood, of which so many houses are built in the States, it has probably a long and prosperous life before it. Passing through one of the broadest and shadiest streets in Pittsfield, bordered for the most part with courtly looking old colonial houses, we were shown one which was long the residence of Mr. Appleton, of Boston, and the home where Longfellow found his wife. Here, on the landing of a broad, old-fashioned staircase, stood the "Old Clock on the Stairs," whose philosophic pendulum still ticks a perpetual "For ever -never," to listening life and death, sorrow and mirth, in the poet's song, a song which well describes the kind of house I have tried to picture as typical of the old colonial times COMBIA OD "Somewhat back from the village street Stands the old-fashioned country seat, Across its antique portico Tall poplar trees their shadows throw, And from its station in the hall An ancient time-piece says to all— Never-for ever!" There is another house in Pittsfield having a connection of considerable interest with one of the stirring episodes of the Revolutionary War. We have already seen that the Berkshire folk were, for the most part, enthusiasts on behalf of national independence and that the county militia was prompt in its aid of the cause. Colonel James Easton, the commander of this corps, was landlord of a quaint old gambrel-roofed tavern, standing in one of the shadiest streets of Pittsfield, in the year 1775. Here, on the evening of a wild May-day in that year, came Edward Mott, with a band of sixteen |