【英文原著类】Some Cities and San Francisco and Resurgam(圣弗朗城).pdf

Some Cities and San Francisco and Resurgam
Some Cities and San
Francisco and Resurgam
By Hubert Howe Bancroft
1
Some Cities and San Francisco and Resurgam
Some Cities and San Francisco
There had been some discussion as to improving and beautifying the
city of San Francisco prior to the catastrophe of April 18th. Landscape
architects had been consulted, proposals considered, and preliminary plans
drawn. Therefore when on that day the city was swept by fire, obviously it
was the opportune moment for the requisite changes in the rebuilding. For
a brief period enthusiasm waxed warm. It helped to mitigate the blow, this
fencing with fate. Let the earth shake, and fires burn, we will have here
our city, better and more beautiful than ever-and more valuable-an
imperial city of steel it shall be, and thus will we get even with the
misfortunes of this day.
Reform in the rebuilding was needed, whatever should be the scale of
beauty or utility decided upon. Fifty years ago the elevating influences of
tasteful environment were not so highly appreciated as now, and all large
cities are fifty years old or more. All large cities, as a rule, had their
beginning with narrow, crooked streets and mean houses. In Europe and
Asia there are aggregations of humanity whose domiciles have remained
unchanged, one might almost say uncleansed, for hundreds or thousands
of years, or ever since their mythical beginning, save only for the covering
of the debris of dead centuries.
These ancient towns, mostly offspring of feudalism, begun under
castle walls and continued after walls and castle had crumbled, as their
area enlarged, with some improvement, perhaps, in the suburban parts,
still retained this patch of mediaevalism, until obliterated by war, or fire,
or later by modern progress. Look at Edinburgh, for example. With all its
Scotch thrift and neatness, there yet remains the ill-conditioned and once
filthy quarter, beside which rise the old-time ten-st