Gentlemen, I was born in Boston; and I well remember the time when our cows were pastured on Boston Common, when the Back Bay was not a myth, but a reality, and when at least a portion of the summit of Beacon Hill was covered with green fields, on which were seen sometimes "raree shows" and travelling menageries. Since that time, our city has grown and swelled, and stretched itself north and south, and east and west, striding over one arm of the sea, filling up another, swallowing the neighboring towns one by one, taking two mouthfuls for Roxbury, and one for Dorchester, and one for Charlestown and Brighton together, until it has expanded its population sevenfold, and its area almost seventy times seven, within fifty years. Yet there stands Boston Common just where and just what it was--no larger, and thank heaven! as yet no smaller [loud applause]--than it was fifty years ago. Where are the breathing-places for this enlarged metropolis? Where are the places of common resort for quiet and healthful enjoyment and peaceful recreation for this expanded population? Where are the noble parks and the wide-spreading groves? Where are the places fit for public entertainment, which we find in every other large city in the civilized world?--such as we see in London and Paris and Berlin and Vienna and Florence and Rome and Naples--yes, even for the few brief months of summer, in the northern capitals of Stockholm and St. Petersburg? And echo answers, "Where?" [Laughter and applause.] "Gone like a vision!" My friends, I need not tell you that this matter has excited the interest of our philanthropic and public-spirited citizens, and especially of the medical faculty, to whom it is, in its sanitary aspect, a matter of most important practical interest. And, through their representations to the city government and to the state legislature, a bill was brought before the legislature, which I had the honor myself to report in the House of Representatives a little more than a year ago, and which was passed by large majorities in both houses, authorizing the city of Boston to purchase and to take lands within its own limits for laying out public parks, and to co-operate with adjacent towns in laying out conterminous parks for the common benefit and advantage of citizens on both sides of the line. This measure was opposed (as all such measures are opposed) on the ground that "it would lead to jobbery and extravagance." And the answer was ready at hand, that all public enterprises are liable "to lead to jobbery and extravagance," but that the abuse of a good thing is no argument against its valid use [applause]; that it is for the citizens themselves, and for the government of the city of Boston, to see that their trust is rightly and honestly carried out.