Studies in the South and West, with Comments on CanadaWarner, Charles Dudley
History
Studies in the South and West, with Comments on Canada
Warner, Charles Dudley
Canada -- Description and travel; United States -- Description and travel
The people of Indianapolis call their town a Park City. Occupying a
level plain, its streets (the principal ones with a noble width of
ninety feet) intersect each other at right angles; but in the centre of
the city is a Circle Park of several acres, from which radiate to the
four quarters of the town avenues ninety feet broad that relieve the
monotony of the right lines. These streets are for the most part well
shaded, and getting to be well paved, lined with pleasant but not
ambitious residences, so that the whole aspect of the city is open and
agreeable. The best residences are within a few squares of the most
active business streets, and if the city has not the distinction of
palaces, it has fewer poor and shabby quarters than most other towns
of its size. In the Circle Park, Here now stands a statue of Governor
Morton, is to be erected immediately the Soldiers’ Monument, at a cost
of $250,000.
The city is fortunate in its public buildings. The County Court-house
(which cost $1,000,000) and City Hall are both fine buildings; in the
latter are the city markets, and above, a noble auditorium with seats
for 4000 people. But the State Capitol, just finished within the
appropriation of $2,000,000, is pre-eminent among State Capitols in
many respects. It is built of the Bedford limestone, one of the best
materials both for color and endurance found in the country. It
follows the American plan of two wings and a dome; but it is finely
proportioned; and the exterior, with rows of graceful Corinthian columns
above the basement story, is altogether pleasing. The interior is
spacious and impressive, the Chambers fine, the furnishing solid and in
good taste, with nowhere any over-ornamentation or petty details to
mar the general noble effect. The State Library contains, besides the
law-books, about 20,000 miscellaneous volumes.
When Matthew Arnold first came to New York the place in the West about
which he expressed the most curiosity was Indianapolis; that he said he
must see, if no other city. He had no knowledge of the place, and could
give no reason for his preference except that the name had always had
a fascination for him. He found there, however, a very extensive
book-store, where his own works were sold in numbers that pleased and
surprised him. The shop has a large miscellaneous stock, and does a
large jobbing and retail business, but the miscellaneous books dealt
in are mostly cheap reprints of English works, with very few American
copyright books. This is a significant comment on the languishing
state of the market for works of American authors in the absence of an
international copyright law.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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