STATUES IN THE STREETS.
[To TRH EDITOR OF THY " BPRCTA.TOR."
SIR, —I have been trying in vain to identify the Churchmen -whose statues have been recently placed round about the north entrance of Westminster Abbey. From the regularity and dignity of the figures, I conclude that they are ideal pre-
sentations of legendary persons.
I wish to ask why the outsides of our churches should not record facts instead of guesses, and why modern Churchmen, with whose faces we are familiar, should not fill vacant niches on the Abbey, and on our cathedrals and churches?
If it be not too daring, I wish to go farther, and to ask why our Law Courts should not have statues of lawyers ; our Houses of Parliament and Government offices, statues of statesmen? Will anybody contend that heraldic beasts are more interesting, or more proper for the adornment of a Natural History Museum, than statues of Jefferies, of Wood, or of Lubbock P A large building is in course of erection for War Offices.
If we have sculptors who can group and finish the beautiful statues of poets and artists on the Albert Memorial, why • cannot we leave our public buildings partly unfinished in point of decoration, so that our sculptors could add from time to time, as popular enthusiasm or private friendship might allow, statues or other representations of our soldiers, sailors, and great men ? I do not mean Wellington or Nelson, but Chard and Bromhead, Gordon, Beresford, and Kane What an education it would be for young soldiers and sailors to have the story of our heroes thus published in lithograph, and what a relief it would be to have no more statues in the streets, and no more monuments inside the Abbey !—I am,
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