I30 LONDON PARKS & GARDENS 



Sundays — who walk about, or lounge, or listen to the 

 bands, or to what appears still more stimulating, to the 

 impassioned harangue of some would-be reformer or 

 earnest preacher. The densely-packed audiences, the 

 gesticulations and heated and declamatory arguments, are 

 not confined to Hyde Park. Victoria Park gathers just 

 such assemblies, and every park could make more or 

 less the same boast. The seats are equally full in each 

 and all, and the grass as thickly strewn with prostrate 

 forms. Perambulators are as numerous and children 

 as conspicuous in the north, south, and eastern parks 

 as in those of the west. 



In looking round the parks it will be well to take 

 a glance at the smaller ones, then to consider each of 

 the larger ones more in detail, in every case missing 

 out some of the obvious appendages which are 

 characteristic of all. 



How pathetic some of these little parks are, and what 

 a part they play in the lives of those who live in the 

 dingy streets near. Take, for instance, one with a 

 high-sounding name, Avondale Park. It is little more 

 than ten minutes' walk from Shepherd's Bush Station or 

 Notting Hill Gate. Yet, on inquiry for the most direct 

 road, nobody can give a satisfactory answer. One man 

 will say, " I have lived here for years and never heard of 

 it " ; another, " I don't think it can be in this district." 

 The same would be the result even nearer to it ; but ask 

 for the recreation ground, and any child will tell you. 

 "Down the first narrow turning and to the right again, 

 by the pawnbroker at the corner." It is a melancholy 

 shop, with the plain necessaries of life and tiny babies' 

 boots for sale on the trays outside the door — what a 

 volume of wretchedness and poverty those poor things 



