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and absence of any of the comforts and conveniences which are characteristic of the magnificent hostelries of the present day.

The resort was hardly ever visited except in the middle of the summer, and then mostly by business people who wanted to get away on a quiet little vacation.

But in the course of a quarter of a century the town had grown to a considerable extent. With advances and progress along other lines, locomotives were improved. Improvement in this line meant better traveling facilities and a cutting down of running time between various points. Atlantic City was included in this, and with faster trains and more of them many more persons began journeying in this direction.

Atlantic City is sometimes called the "playground of the nation" now, because there are people here from almost every part of the country. And perhaps that name applies as well as any other. There is probably no other place that entertains such a large and varied assortment of humanity as Atlantic City. They come from every direction.

And what attracts so many people?

There is no other resort on the Atlantic or Pacific Coast where there is such good bathing, in the first place, and, in the second, there is no other resort which can be reached so quickly, so handily; none that have such excellent railroad facilities; none that are capable of catering to and caring for such a large number of persons at one time; none that can offer the inducements in the way of comfort and pleasure;

THE INLET, ATLANTIC CITY.

and none other so cosmopolitan. In Atlantic City one may be absolutely alone as much as though buried miles and miles back in the Maine forests. On the other hand, the pleasure-seeker may find as much

YACHT RACE, ATLANTIC CITY.

life and gaiety as in a large city. The happy medium is here, too, for those of that temperament. In fact, Atlantic City has anything the visitor wants.

For fishing and boating there is no place that affords equal opportunities. At the Inlet there is always a fleet of boats ready to take the visitors either to the fishing banks or off for a pleasure sail on the ocean. They can be secured for a nominal fee, and they are all good, safe and strong boats and handled by competent men. Small boats can be secured by those who desire to take a little fishing or crabbing trip in the inside waters.

There is no better bathing beach anywhere. It is flat and level, and is regarded as one of the safest along the New Jersey coast. There is always a force of life guards on duty, and they look after those who

may be weak, those unused to ocean bathing and those who show a disposition to be reckless in the water. There are many bathing houses along the beach front, and in the months of July and August there are as many as 80,000 to 100,000 bathers a day. It is a sight that must be seen to be appreciated, and one that is well worth the expense of a trip to the shore.

Perhaps the chief attraction to thousands of the visitors to Atlantic City is the boardwalk. It is a promenade forty feet wide, between Massachusetts and Texas avenues, a distance of about three miles. From Massachusetts

Avenue to the Inlet and from Texas Avenue to Jackson Avenue, the walk is twenty feet wide. The promenade over its entire length is a distance of a little more than five miles. It is built upon steel piers, and its wooden deck is the gathering place for persons from every corner of the earth.

There is no other place in the world that can offer the same inducement as the boardwalk, There is no place that is blessed with better air, and Atlantic City's water supply is considered one of the best and purest in the world. The latter comes from the mainland, a distance of more than five miles away, across the meadows. It is pumped from artesian wells there and forced across the meadows to the standpipe in the city.

There are a number of small places adjacent to Atlantic City that can be easily reached and which afford a change for visitors. The drive to the Country Club, the home of the Atlantic City golfers, at Northfield, is an enjoyable one, and the course of the club is said to be the finest in this part of the country and one of the best in the United States. It is here that many Atlantic City visitors put in a great deal of their time, playing the game or sitting in the shade of the clubhouse porch, spinning tales of great games and smoking good cigars.

Atlantic City hotels are large, commodious and well calculated to take care of the visitors. The resort has about nine hundred hotels and boarding houses, and it takes all of them, and many private cottages, to accommodate the quarter of a million and more visitors who come here in the summer.

The resort is constantly growing in popularity and size. The hotel men are a unit in working for the advantage of the place, and they have predicted that this year will be one of the best and most prosperous in the history of Atlantic City.

The time was, and that only a short time ago, when no one gave a thought to the seashore as a resort for pleasure or rest in the winter months. To have announced that one was going to the New Jersey coast to spend a week or two or a month in the cold weather would have been almost tantamount to proclaiming that one was a candidate for an asylum. Yet to-day a visit to Atlantic City is looked upon as a course to be naturally expected in winter.

There is not another place this side of the Florida coast that enjoys such a large number of visitors in the winter as does

Atlantic City.

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There is not another watering place that has the attractions, the accommodations and the conveniences that are offered in Atlantic City. And, again, there is not another resort which has the same natural advantages.

The winter climate of this resort is not so warm as further south, and yet physicians assert that it is more beneficial. Patients are sent to Atlantic City winter and summer for the general benefit they will derive from breathing in the pure air and drinking the excellent water with which the resort is supplied.

Atlantic City has the dual advantage of the sea air and the pine air. Setting out in the ocean a distance of some five miles or more it is swept by the ocean breezes. The Gulf Stream is only a little more than forty miles off the beach, and the winds which come across this body of water are tempered and warmed before they reach here. On the other hand, when the winds blow from the mainland, they carry with them the balmy and health-giving atmosphere of the great pine belt only a few miles distant, so that people coming to Atlantic City have the sea and the pine air.

The great boardwalk, which stretches along the entire ocean front of the city, proves a great attraction for the winter visitors. There people may promenade and breathe in the fresh air, no matter what the weather. If it be cold, or a combination of cold and storm, they have the advantage of the vestibuled rolling chair. This is a vehicle, the top of which is entirely closed in glass, and the riders can see everything that is going on about them without being exposed to the elements. If the weather is pleasant they ride in open chairs.

Then many of the visitors to the resort spend their leisure hours in the sun parlors of the piers, or in going to the theatres. The resort has a couple of good playhouses in which appear the best attractions sent out on the road.

With its magnificent railroad facilities, Atlantic City affords an ideal place for many of the business men of nearby cities to run down over Sunday, and that they do it in great numbers is shown by the registers of the several hotels.

The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad name special summer excursion rates and also have low-rate excursions from various points during the summer season.

T

HE Forty-fourth Annual Meeting of the National Educational Association, to be held at Asbury Park, July 3 to 7, 1905, promises to be the most successful gathering in the history of the organization.

Like a magic city, with the advent of the summer season Asbury Park becomes one of the most populous municipalities of New Jersey, with a population bordering well toward 75,000.

Asbury Park has a particularly fine location for a summer outing, and the beach front is one of the best on the North Atlantic coast. It is bounded on the north and south by two beautiful fresh-water lakes, that to the north being known as Sunset Lake, which is most irregular in outline, its surface being dotted with many small and picturesque islands. Several

ASBURY PARK CASINO FROM OCEAN.

hundred boats compose the livery thereon, and gala events are frequent occurrences. At the south is Wesley Lake, a long, narrow and picturesque body of water separating Asbury Park from its sister city, Ocean Grove, by all odds the most famous camp-meeting city in the country.

The thoroughfares of Ashbury Park are not only uncommonly wide, but are very well kept, and the green swards and profuse shade surrounding the residences add materially to the city's attractiveness.

The city has recently taken over the ownership of the beach front

and much has already been done to make the esplanade and boardwalk, which is eighty feet wide, and some three miles in length, a special feature of attraction.

SUNSET LAKE, ASBURY PARK.

There has recently been built a casino of mammoth proportions on one of the piers extending into the ocean, and reached

directly from the boardwalk, and in this amphitheater, under the supervision of the municipal beach commission, is given a series of daily concerts and entertainments by the best and most noted musical organizations and artists in America.

At another point farther up the beach is the new arcade, which can accommodate larger gatherings, and is, like the casino, by day gayly decorated, while at night its electrical display makes the beach front most attractive.

The roads leading to the inland and surrounding country are noted for their picturesqueness, and driving and motoring are popular pastimes. An adequate trolley line brings the nearby towns of Avon, Belmar, Spring Lake,

WESLEY LAKE, ASBURY PARK.

Elberon and Long Branch within easy riding distance of Asbury Park, while a belt line service in the city connects the boardwalk, public halls and business centers with the hotels.

The hotels are comfortable domiciles, with every convenience the tourist may exact and a cuisine which is not surpassed anywhere. There are also innumerable boarding houses, at which very comfortable accommodations may be obtained.

At the smaller boarding houses one may be accommodated for $5 per week, the more pretentious boarding houses charging from $10 to $15 per week; the small hotels furnish very good accommodations for $15

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to $20 a week, but at the larger hotels prices range from $5 a day upwards.

Asbury Park is reached by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and Central Railroad of New Jersey. Low excursion rates will be named for the convention.

Very elaborate preparations have been made by the municipal authorities for the reception and entertainment of the National Educational Association, and the authorities of Ocean Grove are likewise co-operating, having tendered the use of the mammoth auditorium (with seating room for 10,000) and the numerous subsidiary halls to the Association for their meetings.

CAPE MAY, NEW JERSEY.

At the southernmost point of New Jersey, at the mouth of the Delaware River, is Cape May, the sister resort of Atlantic City. It is the same distance from Philadelphia as Atlantic City, and differs from the latter inasmuch as there are more cottages owned by private individuals and a much less number of hotels. It is not a cosmopolitan watering-place, but more of a resort of the wealthy class. The bathing beach in many respects surpasses that of Atlantic City, but is not so popular with the multitude. The boardwalk of Cape May is similar to that of

Atlantic City. It is the oldest resort on the Atlantic Coast, and is the most fashionable. Cape May is reached by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in connection with the Philadelphia & Reading Railway.

OCEAN CITY, NEW JERSEY.

Ocean City lies a few miles south of Atlantic City, and is reached by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in connection with the Philadelphia & Reading Railway. While not as popular with the masses as Atlantic City or Cape May, it has a popular representation of the people each season.