TOPICS OF THE DAY
LONDON SQUARES IN SUMMER TIME
rimy° important communications in regard to the L Square Gardens of London have appeared during the past few days. The first was an appeal to prevent the Gardens being built over when the leases fall in.
The second communication proposes—in our corres- pondence columns—that during the months of August and September, when the people of the residential Squares are away on their holidays, the Garden Com- mittees should follow the example of the Benchers of the Temple and Gray's Inn and allow the children who have to make holiday in London to use the Gardens.
Anyone who has imagination enough to think out the consequences of keeping the garden gates locked during the school holidays must feel a shadow fall across his own holiday plans and hopes. Think of children, released from school but with no playground but the street, peering from the hot and dusty roadway through the iron railings into the paradise of green sward and leafy shade !
I do not want to paint a sentimental picture, or to be tragic or even lachrymose about the matter. The Square folk, however, know so little about London in August and September that one must remind them that the time when they do not want their gardens, and never dream of entering them, is the very time that the children of the poor want them. This boon to the children of London, and also to their parents—for one must not exclude the mothers and fathers----could be given with the very minimum of inconvenience to the owners of garden rights and the very maximum of convenience to their poorer neighbours. Surely the great majority of people who have their attention drawn to these facts will desire to take appropriate action. Think for a moment of the fresh, keen winds that blow on Scottish moors, the shades of Swiss or of Northern forests, the blue depths of glacier ice, the shining snow fields, the flower-damasked pastures of the Alps, the azure seas of the Cornish, Welsh, and West Highland coasts, and the cliffs or wastes of sand that stretch from Felixstowe to Cape Wrath. Will not these delights be heightened by the thought that the doors of those little paradises which seem so poor and scanty compared with such horizons as I have named stand open to bid welcome to the children of the streets ? There will, I am sure, be many whose hearts will be pierced as by a sword with the thought that they had neglected to do something which they might have done to give a share, however small, to those who cannot see the sun set behind the mountains, or sink its full orb in the stream of ocean.
Nothing is more delightful than to watch one's own children or grandchildren holiday-making. Is that joy going to be enhanced by the thought of the locked Square Garden ? Are we going to let some new Meg Merrilies shake our hearts with the dreadful taunt- " Thausands of sordid holidays have been rendered more sordid by your indifference. See if your own are any the brighter."
There are two objections which may arise in the minds of people who, like myself, live in a Square and pay their two guineas a year for the upkeep of the Gardens and -would, if possible, like to see them used in August. One is, will not the opening, at any rate of the smaller_ Square Gardens, involve, a great deal of damage to the grass and trees and so perturb the minds of the Committees who are responsible for their upkeep to the lease-holders ? The other question is, 011 not this opening of the Square Gardens to the children of the poor in holiday time involve an admission that the Gardens are not the private property of the lease- holders as long as their leases last, and so the value of their properties be decreased ? " When once the Gardens • have been opened, it will be impossible ever to close - them again. But this means a most serious loss to the people who have bought or taken houses in Squares with the special object of having a place where their children may play free from any risks of interference or dangers of infection, moral or physical."
The answer to the first question is to be found in the action of the Benchers of the Temple and- of Gray's Inn. I believe I am right in saying that the damage difficulty has not arisen, although in these cases the test is far more severe than it would be in most West End Squares. Gray's Inn is, of course, situated in a very poor neighbourhood, and the Temple Gardens' have no big park spaces near them. St. James's Park, the Green Park and the Gardens of Chelsea Hospital would' relieve the pressure upon the Belgravian parks ; but in the case of the Temple Gardens there are none of these counter-attractions. Except for the attenuated gardens on the Embankment, there are no open spaces near them. But even assuming that some damage would occur there is no ground for a veto. In the ease of a Square Committee anxious on this point, it would be perfectly easy to give a guarantee, and assur- ances that they should be put to no expense, and that breakages, if any, should be at once and adequately repaired. The thin end of the wedge argument is here quite unimportant. The invitation to the children to come into the Gardens in holiday time could be worded in such a way that it could not be taken as involving the admission of a public claim to access.
Finally, I want to point out that the idea that the children of the Square householders might make undesir- able acquaintances in the Gardens, assuming such children to be in London in August and September, is answered by the fact that they would be no more exposed to disagreeable encounters in the Square Gardens than in the Royal parks. As it is, the children's nurses, governesses, and even the fathers and mothers of the well-to-do often freely let them play in the parks or Kensington Gardens, and treat the dread of infection as a spectre, not a reality.
I feel sure myself that all that is needed is for one Square to set the example for August and September opening. Very soon it will be universally followed, and people will wonder with a blush that they used to be so inconsiderate.
May I end by an appeal to the Chairmen and Garden Committees who may feel inclined to move in the matter, or to consider it, to communicate with the Editor of the Spectator, 13 York Street, Coyent Garden, W.C. 2 (marked "London Squares ") ? Any reply or request for infor- mation will at once be forwarded . to the Committee formed out of the Secretaries of the five London Societies and Associations who have signed the letter in to-day's Spectator. Obviously, if anything is to be done this year, as I hope it may, the sooner action is taken, the
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