LEST HISTORY TELL

One more diversion is about to be taken from the holiday pilgrims of Massachusetts highways. After the first of July, billboards of excessive size are to be razed, and among them those which mark the sites of first houses, Indian massacres, and colonial gin-mills. The beneficent oil company, which for several years has conspired with farmers and sign-painters to initiate passers-by into the historic past of Hicks Corners and Pumpkin Village is to be thwarted. The murderous motorist will no longer be reminded that Elljah Stockbridge was shot here by Indians, and joy-riders, pleasure bent, will forget that in this village Deacon Whosis was placed in the stocks for kissing his wife on Sunday. The whole restraining force of tradition will be incredibly weakened by the removal of these landmarks of a glorious past.

But if the moralist is entitled to one groan of regret, admirers of scenery must be permitted several sighs of relief. They may now gaze with less glaring obstruction upon the natural beauties of the landscape. The graceful swell of the meadow will no longer be surmounted by pork-and-beans; canned-milk cows will cease to graze the unfertile slopes of New England. Perhaps, under a more rigorous law the defacers of highways may be forced to renounce entirely their motto, "He who rides must read", and in some Elysian future flamboyant advertising will no longer stun the senses of the motorist, country bent.