[TO THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR. ") SIR, — In the years 1885
and 1886 the members of a Society in Manchester, the Committee for Obtaining Open Spaces for Recreation, alarmed at the condition of a large proportion of the inhabitants of all our large towns, with the approval and support of the Edinburgh Social Union, the Kyrie Society, the Leicester Kyrie Society, the Manchester and Salford Sanitary Association, the Metropolitan Public Garden, Boulevard, and Playground Association, the National Health Society, the North-Western Association of Medical Officers of Health, the Nottingham Social Guild, and the Residents in Toynbee Hall, sent to a considerable number of well-known persons copies of the following statement, with a request that each of the recipients would sign and return the state- ment :- " We, the undersigned, are of opinion that, inasmuch as the health and vigour of our urban population is a matter of vital importance to this nation, it is needful that the Government should issue a Royal Commission to inquire into the existing provision for physical training and exercise in our large towns. We believe that this provision is inadequate in some of our largest cities, and that the Commission might suggest some further extension of legal powers to Town Councils and School Boards, to enable them to provide gymnasia and recreation grounds, under proper supervision, for the training of the young in wholesome games and exercises. We believe, too, that not only do health and vigour decline, but that good order and morality are with increasing difficulty maintained in consequence of the young of our large towns being to a great extent deprived of the physical exercise which their nature requires. We therefore earnestly trust that H.M. Government may see fit to appoint a Royal Commission to inquire into and report upon this question."
I send you a list of the signatures which the Committee, of which I was the honorary secretary, received. I have left the titles as they were in 1886 :— The Princess Louise, the Duke of Cambridge, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of London, the Bishop of Bedford, the Dean of St. Paul's, Cardinal Manning, the Duke of Westminster, Archdeacon Farrar, Canon Liddon, Rev. S. A. Barnett, Lord Wolseley, Sir F. Roberts, General Buller, Earl of Carnarvon, Earl of Meath, Lord Brabazon, Lord Aberdare, Lord Bramwell, the Head-Masters of Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Wellington, and Clifton Colleges and of the City of London School, Professor Jowett, Sir Wilfrid Lawson, Judge Hughes, Sir P. Cunliffe Owen, Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, Mr. W. H. Smith, Mr. Goschen, Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Albert Grey, Mr. S. Morley, Mr. Stafford Howard, Mr. J. Cropper, Mr. S. Smith, Professor Huxley, Professor Tyndall, Sir James Paget, Dr. Termer, Sir W. Gull, Sir Henry Thompson, Sir J. Lister, Sir Spencer Wells, Dr. Lyon Mayfair, Mr. Ernest Hart, Professor Ray Lankester, Mr. Edwin Chadwick, Mr. Charles Roberts, Mr. W. Abraham, Mr. Joseph Arch, Sir John Lubbock, Mr. W. Crawford, Mr. W. R. Cramer, Mr. G. Howell, Mr. J. Leycester, Sir Henry Roscoe, Sir William Roberts, Professor Greenwood, Mr. A. J. Balfour, Mr. E. N. Buxton, Mr. W. H. Houldsworth, Professor Morgan, Mr. John Tatham, Mr. Walter I3esant, Mr. John Ruskin, Mr. T. Burt, Lord Tennyson, Mr. Robert Browning, Mr. Matthew Arnold.
You will see that the list includes the names of Mr. A. J. Balfour and Mr. Chamberlain, and that there seems, there-
fore, good reason to hope that if the Government be now asked that a Royal Commission on Physical Training may be appointed for England and Wales as well for Scotland, it will comply with the request. The " memorandum of reasons for desiring the appointment of a Commission" prepared in 1885-86, of which I send you a copy with the other papers, will show you that the Manchester Committee foresaw the diffi- culty in obtaining a supply of robust soldiers which has been felt in the last three years. The attempt to obtain the appointment of a Royal Commission had to be abandoned in 1886, because Mr. Gladstone's Irish measures distracted the nation's attention from all other proposals.—I am, Sir, &c., Sicanscoe Park; 'war Macclesfield.
T. C. HORSFALL.
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