THE ZOO AGAIN.
. Elsewhere in these -columns we note with satisfaction that, with luck, it will soon be possible to go to the cinema on
Sunday without breaking the law. Industrial civilization has driven a hard bargain with the townsman as well as the countryman, besides increasing his numbers. Under the terms of that bargain, the privilege of taking refuge from his Sunday environment in cacophonous, tobacco-laden darkness and a form of entertainment which only occasionally—to misquote Dryden—deviates into art, is one which he could ill afford to forgo ; we are genuinely delighted to see it reaffirmed. But nobody can pretend that the cinema, even as a short cut to oblivion, is anything better than a pis alter. In the case of London, it is not even a last resort. We expressed last week the view that the Zoo should be open to the public for, at any rate, a part of Sunday ; and, since public opinion seems likely to be the only effective agent in this matter, we reiterate our conviction that the facilities offered by the Gardens for amusement, and incidentally a little education, in the open air should no longer be withheld from the community on the day when it would most appreciate them. In the House of Commons last Monday more than one member of the class from which it is safe to assume that the Royal Zoological Society draws most of its members showed a true appreciation of what Sunday in a big town may mean to a poor family. It is high time that the Society realized its unwritten obligations as the tenant of Crown lands by consulting the greatest good of the greatest number.
Previous page
