160 THE AYETON EPISODE 



• 

 the i's and crossed the t's of his existing reputation, Hooker 

 took care to walk warily. But this availed nothing. As soon 

 as the First Commissioner was fairly in the saddle, one of his 

 first acts was to send an official reprimand to the Director of 

 Kew, the first in the twenty-nine years of the Hooker regime. 

 Launched without warning given or explanation asked, it 

 turned out to be based on a misapprehension. 



This was not encouraging, but Hooker maintained a con- 

 ciliatory attitude ; and indeed, while still smarting under this 

 unprovoked reprimand, at the First Commissioner's special 

 request devoted many nights to examining and reporting upon 

 various books and pamphlets on the public parks of England, 

 France, and America, for his guidance — a labour not very 

 congenial and wholly beyond his province as Director of Kew, 

 but furthermore undertaken in the hope that it might lead the 

 First Commissioner to judge more generously of the acquire- 

 ments and duties of some of the officers of the department 

 under his control. 



But such considerations had no meaning for Mr. Ayrton. 

 Public economy was his watchword ; his method the con- 

 temptuous disregard of his subordinates' status and authority, 

 with equal contempt for the scientific as apart from the popular 

 purpose of the Gardens. His apparent aim was to drive 

 Hooker to resign, and then convert Kew into an ordinary 

 Park, and send science to the right about. 



After a series of vexatious interferences, matters came to 

 a head in the summer of 1871, when Hooker casually dis- 

 covered from one of his subordinates that he himself had been 

 superseded six months before in one of his most important 

 duties — namely, the heating of the plant houses, which had, for 

 scientific reasons, been specially assigned to the Director in 1867 

 (see p. 81). In reply to a courteous inquiry as to the reason of 

 this, he received an offensively curt intimation that the change 

 had been made, and that he ' must govern himself accordingly.' 

 Hooker thereupon addressed a sharp remonstrance to the 

 First Commissioner, complaining of the disregard of his office 

 and the want of confidence with which he had been treated. 

 In reply, Ayrton demanded particulars and dates of these 



