34 FOKESTS, WOODS, AND TREES 



Birmingham, Leeds, and many others have at present 

 (1845) no public walks. Shrewsbury, Newcastle-under- 

 Lyme, Derby, and few more possess them. The metropolis 

 except at the west and north-west, where the different 

 parks minister so much to the comfort and health of the 

 people, has no public walks, though Victoria Park, now in 

 progress, will supply the want to the east. The large 

 populations of South wark and Lambeth to the south are 

 yet without such a source of enjoyment and salubrity. 

 The Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1833 

 recommended that steps should be taken to supply the 

 want. In 1840 the sum of £40,000 was voted by 

 Parliament to assist local efforts for this purpose in 

 provincial towns, and a few places have had grants from 

 this sum." 



The Commissioners in conclusion strongly recommended 

 " that for the purpose of establishing public walks, in 

 addition to legal facilities, the local administrative body 

 be empowered to raise the necessary funds for the manage- 

 ment and care of the walks when established." 



Prof James Thomson in a lecture (1) at Belfast on 

 2nd March 1852, " On Public Parks in Connection with 

 Large Towns," said that Manchester then had three parks, 

 though at the time of the Commissioners' report it had none, 

 and Victoria Park in the east of London had just been opened. 

 This lecture led to the purchase, for the town of Belfast, of 

 the large Ormeau Park. 



Thomson pointed out that the rapid extension in the 

 size of towns, while increasing the happiness of the rich, who 

 escape to the outskirts, had entailed on the inhabitants 

 new discomforts, of which the chief were smoky air and 

 increased distance of their residences from the country. 

 The establishment of public parks was a just claim on 

 those who had been made rich by manufactures of towns. 

 He advocated the laying of a tax on owners of vacant land 

 near a town, as soon as it was first built on, the object of 

 the tax being to supply funds for the establishment of 

 permanent open spaces, as a compensation for the evil 



