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about 40 years since -was no spontaneous growth of that sleepy 

 looking square ; sleepy and bald, for it still displays a bare expanse of 

 grass, visited by no one but the gardener who has to mow it, its 

 monotony unrelieved by a single flower or shrub. It seems there is 

 one inhabitant who stands out against refonn— an old lady, bom at a 

 period when it was thought no part of a parent's duty to train the 

 intelligence ; and, therefore, like many " old girls of the period," 

 quite inaccessible to reason. The streets of the older part of the town 

 are mostly too narrow for trees ; but, wherever they are not so, the 

 Municipality has planted them ; and, as a consequence, lines and 

 clumps of verdure relieve even the most desolate-looking parts of the 

 town, ^^■here trees would intercept the sea view, lower objects have 

 been well planted, and are carefully tended ; so that the shrubs, while 

 not trimmed into unnatural shapes, but breaking into all the variety 

 of outline that belongs to them by nature, are clothed with foliage 

 from the very ground ; and the flower beds, though the " raised pie 

 and jam tart " patterns have been abandoned, show no unsightly 

 patches of bare earth. The efforts of the municipal authorities have 

 been fully seconded by the householders. The architect has come to 

 own that, however beautiful may be his own creations, these of his 

 brother professional men are for the most part very_ ugly, the 

 difficulties inherent to great expanses of brick and Portland cement 

 being recognised as so great that, unless considerable expense in 

 ornament can be afforded, it is nothing but a mistake to make them 

 such striking objects as to invite attention, and that the best plan is to 

 call in the nurser)-man"s aid to drape them with creeping plants. The 

 consequence is, that in winter the houses appear to nestle in ivy and 

 euonj-mus, glowing here and there with flame-coloured bands of pyra- 

 canthus,— such as even, 30 years ago, might have been seen, as one 

 passed by the Railway, on Mr. Gorringe's house, at Southwick, — 

 or with the brilliant scarlet of the cotomaster, or the large golden 

 fruit of the passion flower ; while all through the summer and autumn 

 months they are festooned with Virginia creeper, passion flower, and 

 honeysuckle, and with clematis of ever)- sort, from the one that 

 climbs to the top of lofty buildings and covers them in May with 

 white star-like flowers as freely as it does the deodars on the slopes of 

 its native mountains, to those more late-flowering kinds which, 

 throughout the following months, display in succession their sheets of 

 violet and lilac bloom. 



