Roxbury
A town beside Boston, later part of the city, which Hale's narrator uses as a measure of crowding.
Today: Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Signals from the Brick Moon
Edward Everett Hale, “The Brick Moon,” part III, The Atlantic Monthly, December 1869 · December 1869 (the third part of a serial that ran October–December 1869)
As I watched, I saw one of them leap from that surface. He passed wholly out of my field of vision, but in a minute, more or less, returned. Why not! Of course, the attraction of his world must be very small, while he retained the same power of muscle he had when he was here. They must be horribly crowded, I thought. No. They had three acres of surface, and there were but thirty-seven of them. Not so much crowded as people are in Roxbury, not nearly so much as in Boston; and besides, these people are living underground, and have the whole of their surface for their exercise.
As I watched, I saw one of them leap from that surface. He passed wholly out of my field of vision, but in a minute, more or less, returned. Why not! Of course, the attraction of his world must be very small, while he retained the same power of muscle he had when he was here. They must be horribly crowded, I thought. No. They had three acres of surface, and there were but thirty-seven of them. Not so much crowded as people are in Roxbury, not nearly so much as in Boston; and besides, these people are living underground, and have the whole of their surface for their exercise.