♦ KNOV/LEDG 



351 



KEW GARDENS. 



Br EiciiARD A. Proctor. 



EVERY one has read Douglas Jerrold's "Two Win- 

 dows," and knows whence the paper took its origin- 

 " The two windows," says Blanchard Jerrold, '' were seen 

 on a summer's day. We had strolled through the lovel}' 

 English village from which Heme Bay gets its name, and 

 had gone through the churchyard to the park beyond. The 

 rise and swell of the finely-timbered land, dotted with 

 sheep, and white and yellow with daisies and buttercups, 

 woke all my father's enthusiasm. He lingered and turned 

 about, and could not feast enough on the beauties before 

 him. As we turned the angle of a clump of trees, a 

 long, low, white building appeared on the brow of the 

 hilL ' There 's a lovely situation ! ' said my father. 

 ' What a view : ' View ! There was a long blank wall, 

 stretched to the beauties of one of the loveliest spots in 

 lovely Kent, with two little windows, about large enough 

 for a hen to pass through. He wondered what the strange 

 building could be. 'The House,' said a passing rustic. 

 It was the workhouse, and the humane authorities had 

 denied the poor the comfort of this view of the meadow, 

 with Heme Church in the distance and the blue sea 

 beyond. My father turned abruptly back from his walk, 

 declaring again and again that it was the most detestable 

 bit of wickedness he could remember." And who can 

 wonder ? To one of Jerrold's " abounding humanity," how 

 bitter must have seemed the wrong here done by man to 

 man, how burning the thought that in a world where, do 

 what we will, there is so much of sorrow and misery, men 

 can be found to hide away from the least happy of their 

 kind the beauties displayed by Nature in her kindlier 

 moods. A new reading truly of the word?, " The poor ye 

 have always with you," and " From him that hath not 

 shall be taken away even that he hath." 



Yet one might find a sort of defence for those " humane 

 authorities." They were building for the poor, who, if 

 they did not want to go to the poorhouse could go some- 

 where else. The house was not the property of those for 

 whom it was being built ; so that thf^j had no right to com- 

 plain if an extra amount of brickwork was thrown in. As 

 for the pain which the brutality of these wretches might give 

 to those not provided with hearts of stone, that was no afl'air 

 of theirs. Besides, by letting the house be too attractive 

 they might encourage pauperdom : — -With much more devil's 

 advocacy of the same kind (do we not know it all by heart ?). 

 As one walks along the mile or more of high brick wall 

 which protects Kew Gardens from the profane eye of the 

 ordinary English passer-by, one recalls the story told by 

 Jerrold ; but one wonders what defence the " humane 

 authorities " could make in this case. Out of the nation's 

 money these grounds have been paid for, and all that has 

 Ijeen needed for them has been pro\ided. Out of the 

 nation's money wages have been paid to certain persons 

 — from the time of the elder Alton until now, the 

 time of the younger Hooker — to take scientific charge 

 of these Botanical Gardens. A portion of the very 

 money which the nation has thus provided is applied, by 

 the very persons thus paid out of the national purse, to 

 brick up the people's property, in such sort that, except 

 through three or four gateways (heavily ironed) nothing 

 but the tops of the trees can be seen. The walls have been 

 extended further and further, and raised higher and higher 

 (lest, perhaps, some unusiially tall person on the top of a 

 passing omnibus should look over and catch a glimpse of 

 the hats of Sir Joseph's morning guests), — gateways which 

 chance to command (after a keyhole fashion) some not alto- 

 gether desolate part of the grounds, are bricked up, and 



obstructions, cleverly devised, hide every spot of interest 

 which might possibly be seen through the principal 

 entrances. And as I have said, all this is done with 

 the people's money, by the people's paid ser\'ants, to spoil 

 and hide away the people's own property. 



When we ask why the Gardens are not opened earlier 

 than one o'clock, we are met with the answer that " the 

 morning hours are reserved for the necessary work of the 

 gardenei-s, curators, and botanical, students." We might 

 believe this, supposing it were not an outrage on common 

 sense that the presence of the public can interfere in 

 the slightest degree with such work, were it not for 

 those two thousand yards of brick wall Tlfy are not 

 necessary for the work of the gardeners and curators. 

 They might very conveniently hide what work was 

 not done ; but assuredly if gardeners, curators, and 

 the great Sir Joseph himself are too shamefaced to 

 carry on their necessary works within possible sight 

 of passers-Viy, who, through the railings, might watch 

 them blowing up a casual tree or the like, then 

 they ought to be too modest, one would say, to accept 

 their periodical remunerations. As it is quite certain that 

 the grievous wrong done to the public by the walling-in of 

 their scientific gardens is not done by any means in the 

 interests of the scientific work carried on at Kew, we may be 

 permitted to doubt (apart from the a priori absurdity of the 

 idea) whether the gardens are kept closed till 1 o'clock 

 each weekday in the interests of science alone. A lofty 

 wall, entirely hiding the Gardens from view, may be very 

 convenient to convert the Gardens into a private park for 

 Sir Joseph Hooker and his friends during the best part of 

 everyday: it assuredly has no scientific utility. It may most 

 confidently be assumed that the late hour of opening, with- 

 out which the hiding walls would be of little use, forms a 

 part of the same plan. It was not for that purpose, how- 

 ever, that the Kew Gardens were provided. Sir Joseph 

 Hooker may be an excellent botanist I am assured that 

 his paper on the Balanop/ior«c(r in the Linnaan Transac- 

 tions shows great scientific acumen. But I am quite 

 certain that the nation has not proposed to reward even 

 his services to botany by making him proprietor during 

 three-quarters of each year of what (in the way that he 

 holds it) may be regarded as the finest park in the country. 

 There are as good botanists as Sir Joseph Hooker in 

 England ; there is not ctie, I hope and believe, who would 

 insult and wrong the public as he has done. 



Let it be granted that when the Gardens are open, too 

 many 'Arrys, with their accompanying Susan Anns, make 

 their appearance on the scene. I am not myself a warm 

 admirer of our 'Arrys and their " lady friends," as I think 

 they call their sweethearts and wives. Their strange 

 taste (or rather, utter want of taste) in attire offends the 

 sensitive eye, their voices are too often discordant, their 

 ways unpleasing, their mannei-s conspicuous by absence. 

 But if I find this the case (insomuch that I never enter 

 the grounds when 'Arrys most do congregate there), my 

 advocacy is all the more honest It is a question of right 

 and wrong. JIany of us would find it pleasanter, per- 

 haps, if none below the upper middle^class were allowed 

 to walk along the Strand, but it would be a manifest 

 wrong to exclude even the poorest The wrong done to 

 the public at Kew is as great, antl should be as manifest 



But the question of hours of admission is less crying 

 than tlie brick wall iniijuity. Perhaps if that wall were 

 replaced by railings, we might find all those we employ in 

 the v'ardens, from Sir Joseph down to the least of all his 

 gardeners, so busily employi-d in the morning hours, tliat 

 we should feel loth to have (Im \\\ disturbed, say before 

 noon. If it is so, even now, ihty do tlumselves, as well 



