year. Across Ward street from City block a large business block is soon to be erected by Arthur G. Marston. Just south of the Green street corner, almost diagonally across from the Marston property, Fred P. Richmond is to build another business block of large dimensions and striking design to replace several low wooden buildings which have outlasted their usefulness for such a business centre. A few weeks ago the H. W. Robinson Company purchased the building and site on Main street, opposite Centre street, in the very heart of the city, where its business is carried on, and another year a modern business block is to be erected to replace the present structure.

isfactory structures of the city.

The most unique building of them all, the first ever constructed on that plan, is the Checkerton, an apartment house on Belmont and Cottage streets. It is a brick and stone building five stories high, the suites being built in what corresponds to the squares on a checkerboard. In this way the problem of light and ventilation was solved by Thomas B. Inness, the proprietor. Three sides of each suite are exposed to light and air and the fourth side is joined to the central hallways. There is no wall separating one suite from another and the entrance to a suite is the only connection it has with the main building. Here is exclusiveness,

It

combined with all the benefits of an apartment house of other types, and the problem of that terror of modern life, a servant girl, is solved by those who become Checkermen. So successful was Mr. Inness with his plan, which those who have tried declare must have been an inspiration, that later he erected another building, close beside the first. is called the Chesston, for obvious reasons, is five stories high, and rivals the Checkerton in all that makes for apartment house convenience and satisfaction. In the two buildings fifty-four families are accommodated. On the fifth floor On the fifth floor of the Checkerton is a dining room after the old English style, where

corner of Centre and Montello streets and is constructed of re-inforced concrete, making a handsome and durable structure, thoroughly up-to-date and a credit to the city. It is the nearest business building to the Brockton railroad station. In it are the offices of the United Shoe Machinery Company, which carries on an enormous business in this stronghold of the shoe industry.

One day last fall there were eighty-five thousand and five humdred persons gathered on a few acres of ground in Brockton. It was simply a day at the Brockton fair, a festival which is known as widely as the Brockton shoe. The management of the fair is planning

From far and wide people come to see "the biggest and best," a show which last year took in receipts $89,046.15 and will give it all back to the people in wholesome, educational entertainment, guarded in

brought the saddest day in the history of Brockton. The steam boiler used for running the shoe factory of R. B. Grover & Company, on Main street, exploded. The entire factory building was wrecked and immediately fire broke out in every part of the ruins, sending a swift rush of flames to incinerate helpless employes who were caught in the wreck of the building, killed, pinned down or crushed. In ten minutes it was impossible to give aid and fifty-eight persons lost their lives. Of this number only sixteen bodies. could be identified after being taken from the ruins and in some cases

GEORGE S. PAINE

BOYS' SECRETARY OF THE Y. M. C. A. WHOSE GENIUS IS WINNING HIM NATIONAL RECOGNITION IN BOYS' WORK

such a way that good order always prevails and dyspepsia has to reach a malignant stage before criticism. from anyone becomes adverse.

There was an Igorrote village at the fair last fall. The Filipinos there were of the few who had never worn Brockton shoes but the giant of the family was measured for a pair before he left the grounds. The George E. Keith Company has since. established a retail store in Manila selling Brockton-made shoes to the Filipinos at home.

A disaster occurred on the morning of March 20, 1905, which

Every city in these days of competition between municipalities as well as between firms, corporations and individuals, needs an industrial yeast cake. Brockton has a Board of Trade which aims to keep its eyes

The Board of Trade has a conviction that it is as important to retain those industries which the city has and to have them grow and develop within the city as it is to obtain new industries of which it knows less. The Board has been successful in a quiet way in retaining some shoe manufacturing firms which thought for a time of moving elsewhere. The most notable example is that of the E. E. Taylor Company. A few years ago the firm had been almost persuaded to leave Brockton for a smaller town, but the Board of Trade learned that the first essential

REV. ALAN HUDSON

open for opportunities for industrial development of the city. It has working committees to which are, referred these opportunities as they present themselves. Like every other Board of Trade, a large part of the "tips" which come from industries, restless in present locations and looking for new ones, and from people with an axe to grind, are absolutely worthless. But it is the business of the committee on new industries and other committees of equal value to sift the chaff from the wheat, and when a really good thing is in sight to strive mightily to get for a greater Brockton.

REPRESENTATIVE P. B. HANCOCK STRENUOUS ADVOCATE FOR THE NEW YORK, BROCKTON AND BOSTON CANAL, WHICH WOULD MAKE BROCKTON A SEAPORT

was a larger factory. This was provided and, in the larger quarters, the firm felt so good that all the other things were so arranged that the concern has no intention of leaving the city in which it has grown to