[66] St. 1884, c. 306.

The public has a right to occupy the highway for travel and other legitimate purposes, and to use the soil, the growing timber, and other materials found within the space of the road, in a reasonable manner, for the purpose of making and repairing the road and the bridges thereon.[67] But the public cannot go upon the land of an adjoining owner without his consent, to remove stones or earth, to repair a bridge or the highway; and if in consequence of such removal the land is injured, by floods or otherwise, he can recover damages therefor.[68] He is not obliged to build or maintain a road fence, except to keep his own animals at home, but if he does build a fence he must set it entirely on his own land; and likewise, if a town constructs an embankment to support a road or bridge, it must keep entirely within the limits of the highway, for if any part of the embankment is built on his land he can collect damages of the town.[69] He may carry water-pipes underground through the highway, or turn a watercourse across the same below the surface, provided he does not deprive the public of their rights in the way.[70] From the time of Edward IV. it has been the settled law that the owner of the soil in the highway is entitled to all the profits of the freehold, the grass and trees upon it and the mines under it. He can lawfully claim all the products of the soil and all the fruit and nuts upon the trees. He may maintain trespass for any injury to the soil or to the growing trees thereon, which is not incidental to the ordinary and legitimate uses of the road by the public. His land in the highway may be recovered in ejectment just the same as any of his other land. No one has any more right to graze his highway land than his tillage land.[71] He may cut the hay on the roadside, gather the fruit and crops thereon, and graze his own animals there; and the by-laws of the cities and towns preventing the pasturing of cattle and other animals in the highway are not to affect his right to the use of land within the limits of the road adjoining his own premises.[72]

[67] 15 Johns, 447.

[68] 107 Mass. 414.

[69] 4 Gray, 215; 136 Mass. 10.

[70] 6 Mass. 454.

[71] 16 Mass. 33; 8 Allen, 473.

[72] Pub. St. c. 53, Sec. 10.

It is not one of the legitimate uses of the highway for a traveller or a loafer to stop in front of your house to abuse you with blackguardism, or to play a tune or sing a song which is objectionable to you; and if you request him to pass on and he refuses to go, you may treat him as a trespasser and make him pay damages and costs, if he is financially responsible.[73] And likewise, if any person does anything on the highway in front of your premises to disturb the peace, to draw a crowd together, or to obstruct the way, he is answerable in damages to you and liable to an indictment by the grand jury.[74]

[73] 38 Me. 195.

[74] 24 Pick. 187.

Although the owner of the fee in a highway has many rights in the way not common to the public, yet he must exercise those rights with due regard to the public safety and convenience. Perhaps, in the absence of objections on the part of the highway surveyor, or of prohibitory by-laws on the part of the town, he has a right to take soil or other material from the roadside for his own private use, but he certainly has no right to injure the road by his excavations, or to endanger the lives of travellers by leaving unsafe pits in the wayside. He can load and unload his vehicles in the highway, in connection with his business on the adjoining land, but it must be done in such a manner as not unreasonably to interfere with or incommode the travelling public. When a man finds it necessary to crowd his teams and wagons into the street, and thereby blockade the highway for hours at a time, he ought either to enlarge his premises or remove his business to some more convenient spot. He has a right to occupy the roadside with his vehicles, loaded or unloaded, to a reasonable extent; but when he fills up the road with logs and wood, tubs and barrels, wagons and sleighs, pig-pens and agricultural machinery, or deposits therein stones and rubbish, he is not using the highway properly, but is abusing it shamefully, and is responsible in damages to any one who is injured in person or property through his negligence, and, moreover, is liable to indictment for illegally obstructing the roadway.[75] As before said, he has a perfect right to pasture the roadside with his animals; but if he turns them loose in the road, and they there injure the person or property of any one legally travelling therein, he is answerable in damages to the full extent of the injuries, whether he knows they have any vicious habits or not.[76] If his cow, bull, or horse, thus loose in the highway, gore or kick the horse of some traveller, he is liable for all damages;[77] and in one instance a peaceable and well-behaved hog in the road cost her owner a large sum of money, because the horse of a traveller, being frightened at her looks, ran away, smashed his carriage, and threw him out.[78]

[75] 1 Cush. 443; 13 Met. 115; 107 Mass. 264; 14 Gray, 75; Pub. St. c. 112, Sec. 17.

[76] 4 Allen, 444.

[77] 10 Cox, 102.

[78] 25 Me. 538.

As an offset to his advantages as adjoining owner there are a few disadvantages. Highways are set apart, among other things, that cattle and sheep may be driven thereon; and as, from the nature of such animals, it is impossible even with care to keep them upon the highways unless the adjoining land is properly fenced, it follows that when they are driven along the road with due care, and then escape upon adjoining land and do damage their owner is not liable therefor, if he makes reasonable efforts to remove them as speedily as possible.[79] Likewise, if a traveller bent upon some errand of mercy or business finds the highway impassable by reason of some wash-out, snowdrift, or other defect, he may go round upon adjoining land, without liability, so far as necessary to bring him to the road again, beyond the defect.[80] If a watercourse on adjoining land is allowed by the land-owner to become so obstructed by ice and snow, or other cause, that the water is set back, and overflows or obstructs the road, the highway surveyor may, without liability, enter upon adjoining land and remove the nuisance, if he acts with due regard to the safety and protection of the land from needless injury.[81]

[79] 114 Mass. 466.

[80] 7 Cush. 408.

[81] 134 Mass. 522.

A town or city has a right, in repairing a highway, to so raise the grade or so construct the water-bars within its limits, as to cause surface water to flow in large quantities upon adjoining land, to the injury of the owner thereof; but, on the other hand, the land-owner has a right to cause, if he can, the surface water on his land to flow off upon the highway, and he may lawfully do anything he can, on his own land, to prevent surface water from coming thereon from the highway, and may even stop up the mouth of a culvert built by a town across the way for the purpose of conducting such surface water upon his land, providing he can do it without exceeding the limits of his own land.[82]

[82] 13 Allen, 211, 291; 136 Mass. 119.

When the owner of land is constructing or repairing a building adjoining the highway, it is his duty to provide sufficient safeguards to warn and protect passing travellers against any danger arising therefrom; and if he neglects to do so, and a traveller is injured by a falling brick, stick of timber, or otherwise, he is responsible.[83]

[83] 123 Mass. 26.

If the adjoining owner of a building suffers snow and ice to accumulate on the roof, and allows it to remain there for an unusual and unreasonable time, he is liable, if it slides off and injures a passing traveller.[84] And, generally, the adjoining owner is bound to use ordinary care in maintaining his own premises in such a condition that persons lawfully using the highway may do so with safety.

[84] 101 Mass. 251; 106 Mass. 194.

The general doctrine as to the use of property is here, as elsewhere, Sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas,—"So use your own property as not to injure the rights of another." If you make an excavation on your land so near to a highway that travellers are liable accidentally to fall therein, you had better surround it with a fence or other safeguard sufficient to protect reasonably the safety of travellers. If you have any passage-ways, vaults, coal-holes, flap-doors, or traps of any kind on your premises, which are dangerous for children or unwary adults, you had better abolish them, or at any rate take reasonable precaution to cover or guard them in such manner as ordinary prudence dictates, and especially if they are near the highway; for if you do not you may, some time when not convenient for you, be called upon to pay a large claim for damages or to defend yourself against an indictment. But if you have so covered and guarded them, and by the act of a trespasser, or in some other way without fault on your part, the cover, fence, or guard is removed, you are not liable until you have had actual or constructive notice of the fact, and have had reasonable opportunity to put it right.[85]

[85] 4 Carr. & Payne, 262, 337; 51 N.Y. 229; 19 Conn. 507.



CHAPTER XV.

PRIVATE WAYS.

A private way is the right of passage over another man's land. It may be established and discontinued in the same manner as a public way, and it may also arise from necessity. A way of necessity is where a person sells land to another which is wholly surrounded by his own land, or which cannot be reached from the public highways or from the land of the purchaser. In such case the purchaser is unable to reach his land at all unless he can go over some of the surrounding estates; and inasmuch as he cannot go over the premises of those who are strangers to him, in law, and inasmuch as public policy and simple justice call for a passage-way to his land, for his use in the care and cultivation of it, the law gives him a way of necessity over his grantor's land, which runs with his land, as appurtenant thereto, so long as the necessity exists, even if nothing is said in the deed about a right of way, because it is presumed that when the grantor sells the land he intends to convey with it a right of way, without which it could not be used and enjoyed; but when the necessity ceases, the right ceases also.[86] In the absence of contract, it belongs to the owner of a private way to keep it in repair,[87] and for this purpose he may enter upon the way and do whatever is necessary to make it safe and convenient; but if in so doing he removes soil and stones which are not needed on the way, such surplus material belongs to the owner of the land over which the way passes.[88] If a defined and designated way becomes impassable for want of repair or by natural causes, the owner of the way has not the right of a traveller on a public road to go outside the limits of the way in order to pass from one point to another.[89] But if the owner of the land obstructs the way, a person entitled to use it may, without liability, enter upon and go over adjoining land of the same owner, provided he does no unnecessary damage.[90] The reason for this distinction in the law between a public and a private way is that in the case of a private way the owner of the way, who alone has the right to its use, is bound to keep it in repair, whereas in the case of a public way the traveller is under no obligation to keep it in passable condition. A private way once established cannot be re-located except with the consent of both the owner of the land and of the way; but if both are agreed, the old way may be discontinued and re-located in another place.[91] The owner of the soil of a private way may, the same as the owner of the fee in a highway, make any and all uses thereof to which the land can be applied.[92] In the absence of agreement to the contrary, he may lawfully and without liability cover such way with a building or other structure, if he leaves a space so wide, high, and light that the way is substantially as convenient as before for the purpose for which it was established.[93] And so, in the absence of agreement, he may maintain such fences across the way as are necessary to enable him to use his land for agricultural purposes, but he must provide suitable bars or gates for the use and convenience of the owner of the way. He is not required to leave it as an open way, nor to provide swing gates, if a reasonably convenient mode of passage is furnished; and if the owner of the way or his agents leave the bars or gates open, and in consequence thereof damage is done by animals, he is liable to respond in damages.[94] "The law of the road" applies as well to private as to public ways, as the object of the law is to prescribe a rule of conduct for the convenience and safety of those who may have occasion to travel, and actually do travel, with carriages on a place adapted to and fitted and actually used for that purpose.[95] The description of a way as a "bridle-road" does not confine the right of way to a particular class of animals or special mode of use, but it may be used for any of the ordinary purposes of a private road.[96]

[86] 14 Mass. 49; 2 Met. 457; 14 Gray, 126.

[87] 12 Mass. 65.

[88] 10 Gray, 65.

[89] Wash, on Ease. *196.

[90] 2 Allen, 543.

[91] 5 Gray, 409; 14 Gray, 473.

[92] Wash, on Ease. *196.

[93] 2 Met. 457.

[94] 31 N. Y 366; 44 N.H. 539; 4 M. & W. 245.

[95] 23 Pick. 201.

[96] 16 Gray, 175.



CHAPTER XVI.

DON'T.

In school, church, and society many things are taught by the prohibitory don't; and thus many rules of law relating to public and private ways may be taught and illustrated in the same way. For instance:—

Don't ever drink intoxicating liquor as a beverage, at least in large quantities. If you ever have occasion to use it at all, use it very sparingly, especially if you are travelling or are about to travel with a team; for if you should collide with another team, or meet with an accident on account of a defect in the way, in a state of intoxication, your boozy condition would be some evidence that you were negligent. The law, however, is merciful and just, and if you could satisfy the court or jury that notwithstanding your unmanly condition you were using due care, and that the calamity happened through no fault of yours, you would still be entitled to a decision in your favor; but when you consider how apt a sober human mind is to think that an intoxicated mind is incapable of clear thought and intelligent action, I think you will agree with the decisions of the courts, which mean, when expressed in plain language, "You had better not be drunk when you get into trouble on the highway."[97]

[97] 3 Allen, 402; 115 Mass. 239.

Don't ever approach a railway crossing without looking out for the engine while the bell rings, and listening to see if the train is coming; for there is good sense as well as good law in the suggestion of Chief Baron Pollock, that a railway track per se is a warning of danger to those about to go upon it, and cautions them to see if a train is coming. And our court has decided that when one approaches a railway crossing he is bound to keep his eyes open, and to look up and down the rails before going upon them, without waiting for the engineer to ring the bell or to blow the whistle.[98] It is a duty dictated by common sense and prudence, for one approaching a railway crossing to do so carefully and cautiously both for his own sake and the sake of those travelling by rail. If one blindly and wilfully goes upon a railway track when danger is imminent and obvious, and sustains damage, he must bear the consequences of his own rashness and folly.

[98] 12 Met. 415.

Don't drive horses or other animals affected by contagious diseases on the public way, or allow them to drink at public watering-places, or keep them at home, for that matter. The common law allows a man to keep on his own premises horses afflicted with glanders, or sheep afflicted with foot-rot, or other domestic animals afflicted with any kind of diseases, provided he guards them with diligence and does not permit them to escape on to his neighbor's land or the public way. But under the statute law of this State, a man having knowledge of the existence of a contagious disease among any species of domestic animals is liable to a fine of five hundred dollars, or imprisonment for one year, if he does not forthwith inform the public authorities of such disease.[99] Aside from the penalty of the statute law, it is clearly an indictable offence for any one to take domestic animals affected with contagious diseases, knowing or having reason to know them to be so affected, upon the public ways, where they are likely to give such diseases to sound animals; and he would be answerable in damages, besides.[100]

[99] St. 1885, c. 148.

[100] 2 Rob. N.Y. 326; 16 Conn. 200.

If you are afflicted with a contagious or infectious disease, don't expose yourself on a highway or in a public place; and don't expose another person afflicted with such disease, as thereby you may jeopardize the health of other people, and your property also, in case you should be sued by some one suffering on account of your negligence.[101]

[101] 4 M. & S. 73; Wood on Nuisances, 70.

When there is snow on the ground, and the movement of your sleigh is comparatively noiseless, don't drive on a public way without having at least three bells attached to some part of your harness, as that is the statute as well as the common law. By the statute law you would be liable to pay a fine of fifty dollars for each offence. And by the statute and common law, in case of a collision with another team, you would probably be held guilty of culpable negligence and made to pay heavy damages. Of course you would be allowed to show that the absence of bells on your team did not cause the accident or justify the negligence of the driver of the other team, but it would be a circumstance which would tell against you at every stage of the case.[102]

[102] 12 Met. 415; 11 Gray, 392; 8 Allen, 436.

If you have no acquaintance with the nature and habits of horses, and no experience in driving or riding them, don't try to ride or drive any of them on a public way at first, but confine your exercise in horsemanship to your own land until you have acquired ordinary skill in their management; for the law requires every driver or rider on a highway to be reasonably proficient in the care and management of any animal he assumes to conduct through a public thoroughfare.[103]

[103] 2 Lev. 173.

Don't ride with a careless driver, if you can help it, because every traveller in a conveyance is so far identified with the one who drives or directs it, that if any injury is sustained by him by collision with another vehicle or railway train through the negligence or contributory negligence of the driver, he cannot recover damages for his injuries. The passenger, in law, is considered as being in the same position as the driver of the conveyance, and is a partaker with him in his negligence, if not in his sins.[104]

[104] Addison on Torts, Sec. 479.

If you have a vicious and runaway horse, and you know it, you had better sell him, or keep him at work on the farm. Don't, at any rate, use him on the road yourself, or let him to other people to use thereon; for if in your hands he should commit injuries to person or property, you would have to foot the bills; and if he should injure the person to whom you had let him, unless you had previously informed him of the character and habits of the horse, you would be liable to pay all the damages caused by the viciousness of the horse. If you should meet with an accident by reason of a defect in the highway, you could not recover anything, however severely you might be injured or damaged, provided the vicious habits of the horse contributed to the accident.[105]

[105] 4 Gray, 478; 117 Mass. 204.

In riding or driving keep hold of the reins, and don't let your horses get beyond your control; for if you do your chances of victory in a lawsuit will be pretty slim. If you tie up your reins for the purpose of walking in order to get warm or to lighten the load, and let your horses go uncontrolled, and they run over a child in the road and kill it or seriously injure it, you will probably have to pay more than the value of the horses, unless they are very good ones. Or if, going thus uncontrolled, they fail to use due care and good judgment in meeting other teams, and in consequence thereof damages occur, you would be expected to make everything satisfactory, because your team is required to observe "the law of the road" whether you are with it or not, especially if you turn it loose in the highway. Even if you have hold of the reins, and your horses get beyond your control by reason of fright or other cause, and afterwards you meet with an accident by reason of a defect in the highway, you cannot recover anything.[106]

[106] 101 Mass. 93; 106 Mass. 278; 40 Barb. 193.

Don't encroach upon or abuse the highway, either by crowding fences or buildings upon its limits or by using it as a storage yard. If you set a building on the line of the road, and then put the doorsteps, the eaves, and the bow-windows of the building over the line, you are liable to an indictment for maintaining a public nuisance; and possibly you may be ordered by the court to remove them forthwith at your own expense.[107] If you build an expensive bank-wall for a road fence, and place any part of it over the line, you must remove it upon the request of the public authorities, or else take your chances on an indictment for maintaining an illegal obstruction in the highway. If you deposit on the roadside logs, lumber, shingles, stones, or anything else which constitutes an obstruction to travel or a defect in the way, or which is calculated to frighten horses of ordinary gentleness, and allow the same to remain for an unreasonable length of time, you are liable to respond in damages for all injuries resulting therefrom. Even if the town should have to settle for the damages in the first instance, you might still be called upon to reimburse the town.[108]

[107] 107 Mass. 234.

[108] Wood on Nuisances, Secs. 326, 327; 102 Mass. 341; 18 Me. 286; 41 Vt. 435.

Don't ride on the outside platform of a passenger coach; for if you cling upon a crowded stage-coach or street car, and voluntarily take a position in which your hold is necessarily precarious and uncertain, you have no right to complain of any accident that is the direct result of the danger to which you have seen fit to expose yourself. However, if the coach is stopped for you to get on and fare is taken for your ride, the fact that you are on the platform is not conclusive evidence against you; but the court will allow the jury to determine, upon all the evidence and under all the circumstances, whether you were in the exercise of due care, instructing them that the burden of proof is upon you to show that the injury resulted solely by the negligence of the proprietors of the coach.[109]

[109] 103 Mass. 391; 8 Allen, 234; 115 Mass. 239.

Don't jump off a passenger coach when it is in motion; for if you get off without doing or saying anything, or if you ring the bell and then get off before the coach is stopped, without any notice to those in charge of it, and without their knowing, or being negligent in not knowing, what you are doing, the coach proprietors are not liable for any injury you may receive through a fall occasioned by the sudden starting of the coach during your attempt to get off.[110]

[110] 106 Mass. 463.

Don't wilfully break down, injure, remove, or destroy a milestone, mile-board, or guide-post erected upon a public way, or wilfully deface or alter the inscription on any such stone or board, or extinguish a lamp, or break, destroy, or remove a lamp, lamp-post, railing, or posts erected on a street or other public place; for if you do you are liable to six months' imprisonment or a fine of fifty dollars.[111]

[111] Pub. St. c. 203, Sec. 76.

If in travelling you find the road impassable, or closed for repairs, and you find it convenient to turn aside and enter upon adjoining land in order to go on your way, don't be careless or imprudent; for if you take down more fences and do more damage than necessary, you may have to answer in damages to the owner of the land; and if you meet with an accident while thus out of the road, you cannot look to the town for any remuneration therefor, because when you go out of the limits of the way voluntarily, you go at your peril and on your own responsibility.[112]

[112] 8 Met. 391; 7 Cush. 408; 7 Barb. 309.

Don't make the mistake of supposing that everything that frightens your horse or causes an accident in the highway is a defect for which the town is liable. If a town negligently suffers snowdrifts to remain in the road for a long time, and thereby you are prevented from passing over the road to attend to your business, or, in making an attempt to pass, your horses get into the snow and you are put to great trouble, expense, and loss of time in extricating them, you are remediless unless you receive some physical injury in your person or property; as the remedy provided by the statutes, in case of defects in the highway, does not extend to expenses or loss of time unless they are incident to such physical injury. In other words, the statute gives no one a claim for damages sustained in consequence of inability to use a road.[113] And so a town or city is not obliged to light the highways, and an omission to do so is not a defect in the way for which it is liable.[114]

[113] 13 Met. 297; 6 Cush. 141.

[114] 136 Mass. 419.

Nor is the mere narrowness and crookedness of a road a defect within the meaning of the statutes. Towns and cities are only required to keep highways in suitable repair as they are located by the public authorities, and they have no right to go outside the limits defined by the location in order to make the road more safe and convenient for travel. If a highway is so narrow or crooked as to be unsafe, the proper remedy is by an application to the county commissioners to widen or straighten it.[115] Nor is smooth and slippery ice, in country road or city street, a defect for which a town or city is liable, if the road whereon the ice accumulates is reasonably level and well constructed. In our climate the formation of thin but slippery ice over the whole surface of the ground is frequently only the work of a few hours; and to require towns and cities to remove this immediately or at all is supposing that the legislature intended to cast upon them a duty impossible to perform, and a burden beyond their ability to carry.[116]

[115] 105 Mass. 473.

[116] 12 Allen, 566; 102 Mass. 329; 104 Mass. 78.

If you meet with an accident on the highway by reason of a defect therein, don't fail to give notice in writing within thirty days, to the county, town, place, or persons by law obliged to keep said highway in repair, stating the time, place, and cause of the injury or damage.[117] This notice is a condition precedent to the right to maintain an action for such injury or damage, and cannot be waived by the city or town.[118] Nothing will excuse such notice except the physical or mental incapacity of the person injured, in which case he may give the notice within ten days after such incapacity is removed, and in case of his death it may be given by his executors or administrators.[119] Formerly it was essential that the time, place, and cause of the injury should be set forth in the notice with considerable particularity, but now the notice is not invalid by reason of any inaccuracy in stating the time, place, and cause, if the error is not intentional and the party entitled to notice is not misled.[120]

[117] Pub. St. c. 52, Secs. 19-21.

[118] 128 Mass. 387.

[119] Pub. St. c. 52, Sec. 21.

[120] St. 1882, c. 36.

Don't convey by warranty deed a piece of land over which there is a public or a private way, without conveying subject to such way; for if you do you may be called upon to make up the difference in value in the land with the incumbrance upon it and with it off, which is regarded as a just compensation for the injury resulting from such an incumbrance.[121]

[121] 2 Mass. 97; 15 Pick. 66; 2 Allen, 428.

Finally, don't keep a dog that is in the habit of running into the road and barking at passing teams. You had better get rid of him or break him of the habit. Under our statutes the owner or keeper of a dog is responsible to any person injured by him, either in person or property, double the amount of damage sustained; and after he has received notice of the bad disposition of his dog, he is liable to have the damage increased threefold.

Every dog that has the habit of barking at people on the highway is liable any day to subject his owner or keeper to large liabilities; for if he frightens a horse by leaping or barking at him in mere play, and the horse runs away, or tips over the vehicle to which he is hitched, his owner or keeper is responsible for double the damages thus caused by his dog. Hence I repeat the injunction, Get rid of such a dog or break him of the habit; and if this cannot be done, then break his neck.

Perhaps it might be well to say, in this connection, that any traveller on the road, either riding or walking peaceably, who is suddenly assaulted by a dog, whether licensed or not, may legally kill him, and thus relieve his owner or keeper of a disagreeable duty.[122]

[122] 11 Gray, 29; 1 Allen, 191; 3 Allen, 191.



CHAPTER XVII.

FOOT-PATHS.

Air, sunlight, and exercise are absolutely essential for the proper physical and intellectual development of human beings. Thoreau thought it necessary for people who wished to preserve their health and spirits to spend four hours a day in the open air, sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, free from all worldly engagements. No doubt he spoke from his own personal standpoint, and many persons do not require so much exercise in the open air as he did in order to preserve their health and spirits; but the proper observance of the laws of health certainly requires every one to spend a portion of every pleasant day in the open air, and on foot if possible. Since the morning stars first sang together, the whole creation has been groaning and travailing in preparing the earth for the habitation of man; and the influence and teachings of Nature have ever aided powerfully in perfecting man and upbuilding the ruling nations of the world.

The progenitors of every vigorous race have always found in forest and wilderness the tonics and sources of their strength. It took forty years of wandering in the wilderness to prepare the Israelites for the occupation of the promised land. In the open and out-door life of the Athenians was developed a civilization noble in high aspirations for the ideal in beauty and life, rich in literary and oratorical achievements, and glorious in the great and profound thoughts of immortal teachers and philosophers. The august and all-conquering civilization of the Romans had its origin on Palatine Hill when herdsmen and wolves roamed over it. In Holland, where the people are ever in conflict with the elements of Nature, the land has been reclaimed by human effort from "the multitudinous waves of the sea." The streams that once spread over the land or hid themselves in quicksands and thickets are made to flow in channels and form a network of watery highways for commerce and the fertilization of the soil; and where formerly lagoons and morasses found a home, there are now pleasant homesteads, great cities, and beautiful villages. The Anglo-Saxon race, which is now and has been for centuries the most vigorous and progressive in the world, has always had an insatiable hunger for the earth, and a love for a life in the fields by stream or by roadside. Everywhere we find the highest type of civilization where man has gained the mastery of Nature by the work of his hands. The home of such a civilization is usually found where forests have been removed, and the wild vegetation of primitive times has been expelled to make room for the thousand and one productions of modern cultivation; where hillsides and mountain-cliffs have been festooned with vines and made to blossom like the rose; where watercourses have been made highways for trade and utilized for purposes of manufacture; and where gloomy morasses and damp lowlands have been dried up and made fertile and habitable by drainage and cultivation.

As close contact with Nature is necessary for the making of nations, so her teachings are essential for the largest expansion of the human mind. All the great teachers of the race have found in Nature the germs of the thoughts which have widened the bounds of human knowledge "with the process of the suns." "Speak to the earth, and it will teach thee," was the basis of Job's philosophy. When David wanted light and assistance, he lifted up his eyes unto the hills, from whence came his help. Plato taught in the consecrated groves of the Academy, and Aristotle in the pleasant fields of Nymphaeeum or in the shady walks of the Lyceum. Christ taught his disciples to heed the teachings of Nature, and he sought strength and inspiration in the wilderness and the mountains. Wordsworth's library was in his house, but his study was out of doors. But why enumerate, when the entire intellectual history of our race demonstrates that every invention or thought which has extended man's mental vision and knowledge has been evolved from the discovery of some hitherto hidden law of the material world, or from the teachings of Nature, which always foreshadow the fundamental principles regnant in the seen and the unseen world? Hence anything which tends to bring people into the open air and into a closer communion with Nature is worthy of encouragement.

Good foot-paths would furnish an easy and convenient way of getting at Nature; and being free from the dust and heat of the highway, and somewhat retired and secluded, they would be, during a considerable portion of the year, musical with the song of birds and beautiful with green foliage and lovely flowers. These paths would invite and encourage people to take long walks, and this habit would undoubtedly conduce to their longevity and robust health. And the promotion of health is now regarded, in every enlightened community, as one of the objects of government. The enjoyment of life depends in great measure upon the state of our health. When the air feels bracing, and food and drink taste sweet to us, much else in life tastes sweet which would otherwise taste sour and disagreeable. Good drainage and vaccination are not the only means available for the promotion of the public health. People should be encouraged and educated into the habit of taking plenty of exercise in the open air, as in this way the public health will be improved.

One of the charms of old England is to be found in her numerous foot-paths and green lanes, which are recognized by law, for many of them are older than the highways. When a walker tires of the public road or is in a hurry, if he knows the country, he can turn into some foot-path and reach the place of his destination by short cuts through green lanes, across pleasant meadows, and along shady hedgerows. As one passes along these cosey byways, he sees, from every eminence or turn, a new prospect over the landscape interspersed with trees, now and then the bright gleam of water through the foliage, and occasionally some beautiful vista view across parks and homesteads. In this way one can go from town to town, and get about the country quite independently of the highways. Most of the country churches are approachable by lanes and foot-paths which seem to run by all the houses in the vicinage, and by their sweet attractiveness to invite all the people to go to church, at least in pleasant summer weather.

In Massachusetts and some of the other States, towns and cities have authority to lay out foot-paths in the same manner as public ways. It is 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 feels that he has been paid a thousand times for setting it out. When after years of endeavor in trying to keep his roadside neat and clean and covered with greensward, he finds that his example is having some influence on his neighbors, and that even the road-menders begin to respect his efforts to improve the wayside, he feels that he has been amply compensated for all his trouble and care in his own increased enjoyment and in the increased enjoyment he has been the means of giving to the public.

First impressions always have great influence upon our minds. Nothing will give a traveller a poorer and meaner opinion of a town and its inhabitants than dilapidated buildings surrounded by rubbish and broken-down fences. When a traveller passes a house of this character, he instinctively says to himself, "Some shiftless and poverty-stricken family lives here;" but when he passes a well-kept house with pleasant surroundings, he says, "This must be the abode of intelligent and well-to-do people." He feels like stopping and forming their acquaintance, for he is sure that their acquaintance would be worth having. Our opinion of a person's character is always more or less influenced by the clothes he wears and by the house in which he lives. The surroundings of every home of intelligence and tidiness should indicate that it is not the abode of the vulgar and ignorant. Therefore every owner of a homestead should strive to make it a cosey and pleasant home for himself and family. He should take a just pride in keeping his buildings in good repair, well painted and suitably arranged for the purposes of his business and a happy and healthy home life. The surroundings should be made neat and attractive, by the absence of rubbish, and the presence of green grass and shade trees.

If he owns much land, he ought to be landscape gardener enough to set out his fruit and shade trees and to lay out his fields in the best way for convenience and scenic effect. He should also have sufficient rural taste not to locate his barn and other out-buildings in such a way as to shut off the best views from his house. He ought also to have a general knowledge of the nature and uses of trees and forests, and the necessity of their cultivation for the good of himself and mankind at large.

Forest and shade trees greatly enhance the beauties of a country, and no country can be beautiful in the highest degree without them. If the green hills and mountains of New England were stripped of their woods, the lovers of natural scenery and rural life would seek elsewhere the gratification of their tastes. Even the stately homes of England would appear commonplace in the absence of the majestic trees and forests which now encircle them. A plain, modest house, situated in the midst of an open grass-plat and sheltered by a few handsome shade trees, is more beautiful and appeals more strongly to the feelings than the stateliest mansion unprotected from the sun. Who would care to live by the side of the purest stream or body of water, if it were not fringed with trees? Were it not for trees, would there be any beauty in mountain, hill, or valley,—for who can conceive of a beautiful landscape scene devoid of trees?

The love of trees seems to be implanted in all noble natures. The ancients believed that "the groves were the first temples of the gods." Christopher North says that the man who loves not trees would make no bones of murdering.

Some people give as an excuse for not planting trees that it takes so long for them to grow that they will not live to enjoy them. The selfishness of this excuse is enough to condemn it; but it is not tenable from any point of view. It has been said that he who makes two blades of grass grow where only one grew before is a benefactor of his race; and of all the pursuits connected with the interests of mankind what can be the source of more true and disinterested happiness than the knowledge that one has been instrumental in changing a waste and unproductive piece of land into a scene of umbrageous and waving beauty? Cicero speaks of tree-planting as the most delightful occupation of advanced life; and Sir Robert Walpole once said that among the various actions of his busy life none had given him so much satisfaction in the performance and so much unsullied pleasure in the retrospect as the planting with his own hands many of those magnificent trees that now form the pride of Houghton.

Of course it is not claimed that every one should have expensive buildings upon his homestead, or wide-spreading lawns around his house. Many are so situated that they cannot afford to live in costly houses or to spend much money on their surroundings; but every one can make his home, however humble, pleasant and homelike, and can keep his dooryard and wayside free from old rubbish. I can understand how love can be happy in a cottage, but I do not believe it possible for a family to grow in knowledge and virtue and enjoy life while dwelling in mean and dirty apartments.

Cleanliness is next to godliness, and it is just as true of the outside of the house as of the inside. A pleasant and beautiful exterior usually signifies pleasantness and peace within. While well-fenced and well-tilled farms are always pleasing to the eyesight, and neatly dressed roadsides are generally desirable, it does not follow that no shrubbery or sylvan tangles of trees should be allowed to grow on farms or by the wayside. A bare and rocky hill or knoll suggests images of bleak and barren desolation, cold blasts, and parching sun; while a hill clothed and capped with woods gives the impression of a rich and charming country. Therefore the land unsuitable for pasturage or cultivation on a farm had better be covered with clusters of trees or with forests; and frequently an old stone-wall or heaps of stones can be advantageously hidden by vines and shrubbery, as they add beauty to the landscape, furnish shelter to birds, and often protect the crops from cold winds. Many a wayside in country by-roads is so rough and uneven, so rocky and full of earth-pits, that it had better be covered with the wild shrubbery of Nature than to be cleared up in such a way as to expose to view all its unsightly objects. Whenever the roadside cannot be covered by greensward, the native shrubs and wild vines ought to be allowed to hide its nakedness with green foliage and beautiful flowers. They give beauty to wayside scenery, and increase the interest and pleasure of those travelling along the road.



CHAPTER XIX.

ENJOYMENT OF THE ROAD.

In travelling, whether one is riding or walking, it is not sufficient for the proper enjoyment of the way to know how to get along in a legal manner, but he should know how to put himself in harmony with the elements of Nature, and to feel the "gay, fresh sentiment of the road." The first requisite for this enjoyment is to have a hopeful and sunshiny disposition. When people are buoyed up by hope they will find enjoyment under very adverse circumstances. Adam and Eve, according to Milton, saw without terror for the first time the sun descend beneath the horizon, and the darkness close in upon the earth, and "the firmament glow with living sapphires," although they did not then know of a sunrise to come. Yet even in such a time as that, according to this poet, these hopeful natures walked hand in hand "in the grateful evening mild," and held such sweet converse with each other that they forgot all time, all seasons and their change, for all pleased alike. Thus it was in the beginning, and thus it will be at the end; for even in the darkest as in the brightest hours hopeful humanity looks forward to something better, as—

"Of better and brighter days to come Man is talking and dreaming ever."

And who would have it otherwise? As sunshine is the most important thing in the natural world, so it is the best thing in human life. People with sunshiny dispositions are always happy and welcome everywhere, whether on the road, in the sick-room, or in the halls of gayety. They drive away the blues and bring in hope and good cheer; without them, life would not be worth living.

The French philosopher Figuier was so impressed with the value of sunshine in human nature that he taught that the rays of the sun, which bring light and heat and life and all blessings to the earth, are nothing but the loving emanations of the just spirits who have reached the sun, the final abode of all immortal souls; and its light and heat are the result of their effulgent goodness and sunshiny dispositions.

Every traveller, then, who wishes to experience even the common and apparent enjoyments of the way, should start out with a light heart and rich in hope; but if he wishes to taste also the latent enjoyments of the way, he must have an observing eye, and the love of Nature in his heart. It is astonishing how the systematic cultivation of the observing faculties will develop in one the habit of seeing and enjoying his environment. This habit grows as rapidly as heavenly wisdom in one who has made an honest attempt to obtain a knowledge of God, when—

"Each faculty tasked to perceive Him Has gained an abyss where a dewdrop was asked."

What a source of pleasure, solace, and recreation, then, is open to him who knows how to distinguish and appreciate the beautiful in Nature! He hears in every breeze and every ripple of water a voice which the uncultivated ear cannot hear; and he sees in every fleeting cloud and varied aspect of Nature some beauty which the ignorant cannot see.

"Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees takes off his shoes."

There is truth in the quaint language of Platen: "The more things thou learnest to know and to enjoy, the more complete and full will be for thee the delight of living."

We frequently find that when two persons are placed in the same situation, one will find much to enjoy while the other will not, and simply because one has the love of Nature in his heart, and the other has not. One person, living in the midst of the most beautiful natural scenery, is not charmed by anything he sees on the earth or in the sky. To him all Nature is like an empty barnyard, in which there is nothing to inspire him with a noble thought or stir him with a generous emotion. Another person living in the same vicinity sees much in his surroundings to admire and to enjoy. He looks at the sunset glows with delight; he sees beauty in the grass, and glory in the flowers; he sees with admiration and awe the storm-clouds, black and terrible, rushing together like veritable war-horses, or piling themselves up like mountains, reverberating with the artillery of heaven and tongued with fire; wherever he looks nearly every prospect pleases; and to him Nature, like the Scriptures, is new every morning and new every night. Such a person is more likely to be a better neighbor, a better citizen, and a better Christian than one who has not the love of Nature in his heart. Ruskin says: "The love of Nature is an invariable sign of goodness of heart and justice of moral perception; that in proportion to the degree in which it is felt, will probably be the degree in which all nobleness and beauty of character will also be felt; that when it is absent from any mind, that mind in many other respects is hard, worldly, and degraded." The love of Nature has ever been characteristic of the greatest and the noblest minds. To Wordsworth the meanest flower that blows gave him thoughts too deep for tears; and to Christ the lily of the field was more beautifully arrayed than Solomon in all his glory. Likewise we often find that two travellers will pass together over the same route, and one will see much to admire and to enjoy by the way, and the other will see nothing to admire or to enjoy. The one who has an observing eye, and enjoys beautiful and grand natural scenery, sees in every nook and corner by the way some lovely flower or comely shrub to admire, and, like Wordsworth,—

"Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze, He sees the golden daffodils."

And he not only enjoys the present sight, but he enjoys the scene as often as he thinks of it afterwards, as in imagination he views the scene over and over again,—

"For oft when on his couch he lies In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon the inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then his heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils."

And in the common and unnoticed grass by the roadside or in the field, he can see in each blade a system of masonry and architecture that no human skill has ever been able to equal. The stem is very slender, but is so elastic and strong that it waves gracefully in the breeze and bends to the earth in the storm without breaking, and assumes an upright attitude again. It is made up of delicate cells and perfect and intricate channels, through which hidden currents of life throb and flow as mysteriously as the vital blood through the human frame. It is colored with an emerald tint of such beautiful hues that it has been the despair of artists to imitate it in every age. Ages and ages before the human hand learned its cunning, the command went forth for grass to bring forth seed after its kind; and to-day it is waving gracefully in every field, and crowned with the same beautiful flowers and tasselled seed-vessels as of old. Men in their haughty ambition have builded much larger structures. They have erected towers, pyramids, obelisks, spires, monuments, and triumphal arches, which have commanded the admiration of their builders and of their fellow-men in every part of the world; but every principle of their masonry and architecture is an imitation of that in the humblest spear of grass. Thus every traveller on a country road is surrounded by monuments more ancient, more impressive, and more beautiful than the ancient or modern world can show as the production of human hands.

He finds much enjoyment in the study of the forms and characteristics of the different trees by the wayside. If the road passes over highland, on a breezy day he can look down upon or across the tops of undulating forest trees, whose swaying movements remind him of the waves of the sea. He can see in each species not only a variety in the color and form of its foliage, but some characteristic which reminds him of some human being. The rugged oak or apple tree recalls to his mind some sturdy man, of great strength and honesty of character, with picturesque but awkward manners. The gracefully swaying branches of the stately elm or weeping willow remind him of some woman whose elegant form and manners make her as lovely as the moon and as beautiful as light. The rapid and constant motion of the foliage of the poplar and the aspen reminds him of some nervous and excitable person who is never quiet or easy for a moment. The prim spruce-tree suggests to him some person of formal habits and primness of dress. The symmetrical maple and pine remind him of some quiet and dignified character who is well balanced and rounded at every point. The patriarchal tree which has outlived all its companions and stands alone with few and withered branches, but still raising its majestic head to heaven as if in supplication for blessings on the earth, reminds him of some gray-haired person who, full of years and rich in faith, after a well-spent life is approaching and can almost see the other side of the river which separates this life from the eternal world.

If he has a taste for domestic and pastoral scenery, it is gratified as he views the green pastures and meadows, the waving grain-fields, and the occasional gleam of water through the foliage. Ever and anon he passes by some dwelling where the charms of culture have been added to the charms of Nature. By kind treatment the grass-plat before the door has become a refreshing piece of verdure. By careful pruning and training the trees on the lawn have become objects of beauty, and cast their graceful shadows over the velvety greensward beneath. The woodbine tastefully trained over the porch, the flower-bed in the yard brilliant with flowers, and the garden and the fruit orchard in the field, all tend to cheer and sanctify human life in such an abode. Perchance the road runs by some rural homestead which reminds him of his own ancestral home, humble yet beautiful to him, and all the scenes of his childhood come vividly to mind as fond recollection presents them to view. He is once more a barefoot boy, and all is outward sunshine and inward joy. He slacks his thirst once more from the well by the door or at the spring on the hillside; and he visits again the old familiar play-ground, the lane through which the cows are driven, the brook where the sheep are washed, the fish are caught, and the boys go in swimming.

When the road leads him into the mountains or in sight of them, he is charmed by their majesty and awed by their sublimity. A mountain panorama presents all the characteristic phases of Nature and all the moving variation of the atmosphere. At one time they are cloud-capped and surrounded with fog, and then in an incredibly short time they are glittering in a halo of sunlight. As one beholds their majestic heads, around which the storms of centuries have beat, disappear as twilight changes into night, he can but feel oppressed with the gloom and melancholy of the scene. But in the morning, when—

"Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops,"

he can but conclude with Ruskin, that "mountain scenery has been prepared in order to unite as far as possible and in the closest compass every means of delighting and sanctifying the heart of man. Mountains seem to have been built for the human race, as at once their schools and cathedrals, full of treasures of illuminated manuscript for the scholar, kindly in simple lessons to the worker, quiet in pale cloisters for the thinker, glowing in holiness for the worshipper."

Then, again, a country road is a good place to become acquainted with some forms of animal and vegetable life. The odors of growing vegetation, the movement of squirrels and other creatures, and the song of birds, all have a tendency to impress one with the idea that the material world is animated with life. And when the sun pours down a flood of glowing sunlight, and swathes the traveller and the whole world with its glowing and life-giving beams, he realizes that the sun is the source of every material blessing. In the city people know in a general way that the sun is the source of heat and light, and that he adds to their comfort and convenience, as do the electric light and the fire on the hearth; but they hardly realize that his rays are necessary for their existence, to say nothing of their comfort, for even a week. But when a traveller in the morning sees all animated Nature stirring and rejoicing with the throbbings of warmed and rejuvenated life; when he looks out over the landscape and sees the sun raising in misty vapors the water which supplies our springs, lakes, and streams, and refreshes the earth in showers of rain, he realizes that the sun is not only the fire which warms the world, but it is also the mighty hydraulic engine of Nature.

These are some of the enjoyments of the way; but every thoughtful and observing traveller knows that they cannot be enumerated. Like Burroughs, "he is not isolated, but one with things, with the farms and industries on either hand. The vital, universal currents play through him. He knows the ground is alive: he feels the pulses of the wind, and reads the mute language of things. His sympathies are all aroused; his senses are continually reporting messages to his mind. Wind, frost, rain, heat, cold, are something to him. He is not merely a spectator of the panorama of Nature, but a participator in it. He experiences the country he passes through,—tastes it, feels it, absorbs it."

Neither is he confined to the material demonstrations of Nature for his enjoyment of the way. Some of the greatest sermons and speeches have been thought out on the road. A solitary traveller can think calmly and thoughtfully on the great problems of life and death, and can learn to appreciate the fact that "the gods approve the depth, and not the tumult, of the soul."

* * * * *

University Press: John Wilson & Son, Cambridge.

THE END