PARKS, AMERICAN_AND ENGLISH.
Fitom the Conservatory Journal, which we noticed among our Eterary news last week, we learn that the City of Boston is the seene at once of a very regretable movement and of one which promises excellent results. The City is in debt. In its neigh- bourhood there is a great public garden, not unlike the more cul- tivated space in some of our great parks.. The ground is valuable, and sonic persons have conceived the project of parting with it for building purposes, and thus redeeming the debt of the City. Building improvements are a very legitimate way of thus redeem- ing public liabilities, particularly if the building has a tendency to increase the permanent value of the general town. It would be very impertinent in us to interfere, or even to criticize the proposal advanced in Boston. We have no information as to the circumstances, and cannot judge the merits of the suggestion; and instead of attempting any such thing we will simply state a few facts which may aid our Boston friends in judging their case for themselves. America is not yet burdened with any town so vast as London ; but any one familiar with our double' perhaps we ought to say our quintuple city, must be well aware that not- withstanding the decided improvement in the building, drain- ing, and management, — an improvement of such a kind that the revival of old London would now be an intolerable nuisance,—we want something more than detailed improvements in streets, pathways, and alleys. Even our squares are insufficient, though they are valuable as contributing to the general ventila- tion. We want open grounds where the Londoner "in populous city pent," may not only stroll forth to enjoy a mouthful of the wayward wind, or let his eye repose continuously upon a field of green, but where also he may enjoy some amount of bodily exer- cise without listing precisely whither he goes ; straying hither and thither, letting the muscles play without giving too much thought after what they are doing. For you cannot get healthy muscular action, nor free and vigorous human vegetation, without sometimes giving rein to the body, and allowing it to show its independence of thought and intellect. For these reasons, notwithstanding the immense size of our cities, the value of land in them, the difficulty of finding ground, the actual existence of public debt, or what is the same thing the heavy rates upon most of our parishes, the English public has taken the initiative, and in a manner extorted the sanction of the central Government to establish public grounds even where they did not exist befere. Thus we have redeemed Primrose Hill; we have made a park at Battersea ; we shall most certainly secure Clapham Common against being enclosed ; we have made a park in the neighbourhood of Bethnal Green ; and the general tendency of private speculation, even in building, is to respect the same value for publics space. In short, "society," whether acting in its capacity of central Government, municapal corporation, or private speculator consulting the public taste, has everywhere recognised the great truth that mere gross money value does not determine the use and worth even of land; and we have made up our minds, rather late in the day, that there must be open public places where man can cultivate at least some memory of what the planet is where he has not disfigured it. Perhapsour London experiences will not be without a certain WO in Boston?
Boston is distinguished for its intelligence and taste, and the scheme for saving the publics garden of Boston rests upon a direct appeal to that intelligence and that taste. It is for this purpose that the Conservatory Journal is established. It is a commonly repeated story, already cited in Boston we see, that Queen Anne, once asked what it would cost to enclose the Parks at the West End, the reply of her witty Minister being "only three 'crowns, your Majesty." It is also a traditon which clings to Richmond Park, that the right of way through it was preserved to the publics by an old man at the Richmond or Roehampton gate, and an old wo- man at the Ham gate, who insisted upon their right to pass ; and on consulting the law, the whole power of the British empire was found insufficient to bear up against the aged and humble couple. Now the enclosing of its park will cost Boston a price almost equal to the three crowns,—for the Transatlantic Athens will never be able to recover the opportunity thus thrown away,. A public body has been formed to redeem the debt in another manner —to utilize the ground in a better mode. It is proposed to esta- blish a great building somewhat after our Crystal Palace fashion. The building would be in the form of a great Greek Cross, with a central body and four long limbs, devoted respectively to natural history, to agriculture, horticulture, and pomology, to history and archaeology, and to fine arts; the rotunda in the middle being used as a Polytechnic Institution, for exhibition of works illustrating the useful arts, and for lectures on art or applied sci- ence. The garden itself would be used further to illustrate the applied sciences,—one of the most valuable of them, by the way, being the science of preserving health. The several branches of the institution will be entrusted to Societies which already exist; and the Intelligence of Boston would thus establish its palace, like our royalty, in the midst of the great public Park.
If the Bostonians should doubt our regard for our places of public recreation, let them consult the statistics of the persons who visit such places. That Americans can appreciate we know full well, from the remarks of those friends who see our parks and the use to which the public puts them. Nothing has more contributed to the comfort and good order of the multitude, as a multitude, than the facility of roving these spacious preserved landscapes, where enjoyment can at once be free and. harmless. The jealousy with which the privilege is guarded is shown by a little controversy going on at present. Our amiable Chief Com- missioner of Public Works has abolished a few of the fixed seats in Hyde Park, near Rotten Row, and in St. James's Park, and has removed some of the 'paths which the public had shaped for itself. The tendency of these last " improvements " is decidedly democratic, since it prevents our humbler classes from going to gaze in uplifted admiration at the troops of gay equestrians that haunt Rotten Row. Lord John Manners has offered the public various convenient and agreeable iron chair ,s only he charges for the use one penny or two pence a piece. The public is irritated at the arbitrary taxation, annoyed at the abolition of the seats to which it had good title, and angry at the bar placed upon its right of way. It is a decided mistake in the Chief Commissioner; the more so since he was looked upon as a patron of harmless recrea- tion for the humbler classes; and he will have to revoke his late acts, unless he desires to be revoked himself. But the little con- troversy will show our republican friends that the interest of the people, and particularly of the poorer multitude, is jealously watched in this country, though we are not so democratic as our American relatives, nor do we in all things profess such sub- missive solicitude for the res-publica.
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