IN THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS. 5 
promoters quickly sought an entrance into the new and profit- 
able field of city transportation. The Legislature and the City 
Council of Boston, full of the fallacious belief universally held 
at that time, that the more competition there was in street 
transportation the better off the community would be, freely 
granted rights to these new companies to occupy the city streets. 
This competition led to the absorption and lease of weak 
lines, and the number of companies was reduced, until in 1865 
there were only four street railway companies operating in 
Boston, each serving a different district. To the north, con- 
necting Charlestown with Boston, and there meeting the Lynn 
and Boston Street Railway Company, extended the Middlesex 
Street Railroad; to the west the Union Street Railway Com- 
pany, the lessee of the Cambridge Street Railroad Company, 
united Cambridge and Boston; to the south the Metropolitan 
Street Railroad Company served to connect Boston with Rox- 
bury, and towards the east the South Boston Street Railway 
Company brought the detached settlement on the peninsula 
projecting into Dorchester Bay into closer connection with the 
heart of the city. 
These four roads continued their separate existence for 
about twenty years, during which time other competing roads 
were built, and in turn absorbed. There was, however, a 
single exception. The Highland Street Railway Company, 
originally built as a competitor of the Metropolitan Railroad 
in the Roxbury district, proved itself capable of independent 
existence, as the large amount of land made by filling in the 
Back Bay drew a large population into a district lying to the 
west of the original Metropolitan lines, and poorly served by 
them. In 1887 legislative sanction was obtained for the 
absorption of these five companies into the West End Street 
Railway Company, and for the first time Boston found itself 
with a single street railway system. The West End Street 
Railway, originally incorporated for the purpose of developing 
large areas of unoccupied land in Brighton and Brookline, had 
at this time built only a short piece of road, but it was simpler