We feel sure we cannot be wrong in assuming that
this means that the Government have .grasped the importance of not concentrating all their favours on the picnicker and forgetting the soldier, and that care will be taken to guard the interests of the nation's defenders. No one, of course, has any wish to let an occasional grant of access to soldiers count as genuine public access, and thus allow virtual evasion of the provision. On the other hand, it is surely not unreasonable to insist that park gates shall not be open to the picnicker ,'while they are slammed in the face of the Territorial. After all, the soldier generally carries some lunch with him, and therefore in certain aspects may correctly be described as "a picnicker happening to bare arms in his hands."—Our readers will recall the old legal descrip- tion of soldiers going to put down a riot as "citizens happen- ing to have arms in their hands,"—Under the clause as it stood a man eating his food in the open would cease to have the privileges of a picnicker if his object were not so much personal enjoyment as fitting himself for the defence of his country. There must be something wrong about a provision which would have such a result as that.
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