Their Edges Run Back
For Miles Into The Woods Among The Trees And Stumps And Brush Which
Hide A Good Many Of The Houses And The Stakes Which Mark The Lots; So
That, Without Being As Yet Very Large Towns, They Seem To Fade Away
Into The Distance.
But, though young and loose-jointed, they are fast taking on the forms
and manners of old cities, putting on airs, as some would say, like
boys in haste to be men.
They are already towns "with all modern
improvements, first-class in every particular," as is said of hotels.
They have electric motors and lights, paved broadways and boulevards,
substantial business blocks, schools, churches, factories, and
foundries. The lusty, titanic clang of boiler making may be heard
there, and plenty of the languid music of pianos mingling with the
babel noises of commerce carried on in a hundred tongues. The main
streets are crowded with bright, wide-awake lawyers, ministers,
merchants, agents for everything under the sun; ox drivers and loggers
in stiff, gummy overalls; back-slanting dudes, well-tailored and
shiny; and fashions and bonnets of every feather and color bloom gayly
in the noisy throng and advertise London and Paris. Vigorous life and
strife are to be seen everywhere. The spirit of progress is in the
air. Still it is hard to realize how much good work is being done
here of a kind that makes for civilization - the enthusiastic, exulting
energy displayed in the building of new towns, railroads, and mills,
in the opening of mines of coal and iron and the development of
natural resources in general.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 200 of 304
Words from 53850 to 54119
of 82482
