His literary and mathematical powers at this epoch had so far got the better of his poverty that he was enabled during the years from 1870 to 1880 to purchase as his own contribution to the park some fifty or sixty acres of wild wood's. During this ten years of effort for the Fells, in addition to labors which hardly gave him time to draw a long breath, Mr. Wright hoped that younger men, and men! who, though wise and good, were not so strongly identified with unpopular good causes as to have incurred the enmity of the ruling mammon powers, would take the matter up. But no independent effort was made, and in 1880 he put his own tits to work. His hearing before the city council was twelve years later than the day of Mr. Cleveland's urging, and yet in 1880 Mr. Hilliard's governmental hopelessness must still have been true, for before the more practical Metropolitan movers ventured into the legislature, twenty-four more years had been added to the twelve. In 1880, then, the situation would seem to demand a measure by which, without further loss or delay, it would be practical for the people, if they wished, by their own effort and generosity, to secure their Fells for themselves, and which, should they fail in so doing, would by its co-operative, social, and educational character have overcome that stubborn governmental hopelessness. At any rate, Mr. Wright meant no effort on his own part should be wanting in furtherance :of this two-fold aim. His plan proposed to secure the Fells by a two-thirds vote and appropriation from the municipalities, and to encourage this vote it called for a voluntary contribution sufficient to extinguish private titles, which at the appraised value of that date he found to aggregate about $300,000. The contribution took the form of a pledge, the payment of which was conditional upon the vote being favorable. It was a contribution in which
