1879.] WALKS AND FOOTPATHS. 399 



footpaths : it would be the cocoa-fibre mat of the pleasure-ground. 

 On the modern iron road, the different sensation of the stone sleeper 

 and the wooden one is at once felt ; or that of a train passing over 

 Chatmoss, compared with the hard rattle of one passing the rocky 

 neighbourhood of Penrith. We do not wish to discuss the question 

 in detail at present how walks should be made ; we only want to show 

 that something imperfect in their construction, or something very 

 wrong with their surface, compels people to take to the grass, and so 

 form the offensive footpath. 



The direction which walks and footpaths should take about pleasure- 

 grounds and parks is a question that should be well considered by 

 landscape and other gardeners, in first laying out places ; and this, if 

 not attended to, will be a source of irritation ever after. These are often, 

 indeed generally, laid down in an arbitrary sort of way, to complete 

 the symmetry of a plan to be afterwards blotted out or abandoned 

 and another course substituted. The current of humanity is like 

 water, difficult to divert from a natural channel. Footpaths are 

 always an eyesore, especially when they cross fences ; indeed nothing 

 seems to impede the course of a human footpath. In this respect the 

 human animal rivals the ant or land-crab : one instance is daily under 

 our notice, where the offensive line of march crosses a grass plot over 

 two iron fences, two walks diagonally, a shrubbery, a plantation, a 

 wall eight feet high with two wires stretched on the top, and finally, 

 a deep fosse or ditch. It is just Suez or Nicaragua on a small scale 

 — the path must be made sooner or later. In thus recognising the 

 footpath as a route for the made walk, we put an end to all stiff for- 

 malities in the matter of walk-making and in laying out grounds. 

 A walk must lead to somewhere, and be for some use, and not a mere 

 streak of gravel on which nobody has any desire to travel. It does 

 not necessarily require to go straight — very few bye-paths do — but 

 should rather have a tendency to curve right and left. 



If the natural blending of the useful and ornamental were more 

 generally recognised — always giving the useful the first thought — 

 there would be fewer troubles with bye-paths. We could mention 

 almost offhand a dozen lordly places where the dairy and kitchen - 

 garden produce cannot approach the kitchen without crossing under 

 the principal windows, and being carried through the pleasure-grounds, 

 unless a very wide detour is made. In other places the lines of walks 

 are made to join at long acute angles, where the temptation is irre- 

 sistible to cut across. Carriage-drives which people are expected to 

 follow are made to deviate for some view or effective bit of scenery, 

 and so in the end a bye-path is sure to be made. We could name a 

 dozen places with enormous expanses of sterile gravel walks leading to 



