Domestic Notices : — England. 283 



inhabitants of the west end, many of whom have parks of their own. It is to 

 Mr. Hume we are also principally indebted for preserving Primrose Hill from 

 the grasp of private speculators. He successfully resisted the project of con- 

 verting this favourite resort of Londoners into a private cemetery, and was the 

 means of inducing Government to purchase the property from Eton College 

 and Lord Southampton ; a purchase which has recently been effected, to the 

 extent of fifty-eight acres, for the benefit of the public, at a cost of 300/. per 

 acre. This is a most gratifying fact. But still it is in the Borough, and at 

 the east rather than at the west end of London, that open spaces for healthful 

 recreation are most needed. Another pleasing circumstance is, that benevo- 

 lent, public-spirited, and wealthy individuals are beginning to be interested in 

 the same object. We esteem those who, with excellent, but often erring in- 

 tentions, have founded charitable societies for the relief of suffering ; but 

 greater honour to those who look beyond the palliatives that may alleviate or 

 remove distress, and think how the happiness and best interests of the ope- 

 rative are to be promoted ! Give us for reformers men who have honest 

 sympathies with the class of whose cause in parliament or public meetings 

 they profess to be the advocates. Among those who assume the name are 

 some who enclose immense possessions with walls and gates, and employ 

 keepers with guns to guard every avenue to the vast solitudes by which they 

 choose to be surrounded. Let such men pitch their tents in the deserts of 

 Sahara, or the wild prairies of America. What business have they here, in 

 the midst of a civilised community, linked together by chains of mutual obli- 

 gation and dependence ? It is pleasant to dwell upon the contrast afforded 

 by the conduct of one individual, Mr. Strutt, to the selfishness of the class to 

 which we have alluded. His late gift to the town of Derby is one of the 

 noblest benefactions of modern times ; one which we delight to notice, 

 because it has no tendency to frustrate the lessons of forethought and self- 

 dependence which nature teaches, to pauperise industry, or make the poor 

 man trust to the bounty of the rich, instead of the energies which an honest 

 pride would raise within him. Were one general system adopted with all the 

 public parks and gardens in the vicinity of London, such is their variety of soil 

 and aspect, that they might be made to exhibit fine specimens of all the dif- 

 ferent kinds of trees and shrubs which will grow in the climate of Middlesex. 

 If these were conspicuously named in such parts of the parks and gardens as 

 were destined for pedestrians, the names and the plants would tend to amuse 

 and instruct every class of the population, as in the case of the Derby Arbo- 

 retum. The late Duke of Baden, though in many respects a great tyrant, yet 

 kept, all the summer, an excellent band of music perambulating in the public 

 park and gardens at Carlsruhe, from two o'clock in the afternoon till dusk. 

 To these gardens all the inhabitants of Carlsruhe had access at all times. The 

 effect of the music among the trees, a sudden burst coming sometimes in one 

 direction and then in another, sometimes close at hand and again at a distance, 

 was quite enchanting, and may, perhaps, have had some effect in giving a 

 peculiarly mild and gentle character to the inhabitants of Carlsruhe. If the 

 metropolis and its suburbs were put under the management of a council, or 

 commission like that which exists in Paris and Munich, a general I'eformation 

 of all the public gardens, and a general superintendence of all new streets, 

 would be one of the duties of such commission, and an annual metropolitan 

 rate of a halfpenny in the pound would raise a fund sufficient to render 

 London a model for European capitals." {Westminster Review, April, 1841.) 



The Bath Royal Horticultural and Botanical Society has (on April 10.) 

 presented its late curator, Mr. W. H. Baxter, with a handsome silver cup, 

 bearing the following inscription : — " Presented by the Committee of the 

 Bath Royal Horticultural and Botanical Society to W. H. Baxter, as a testi- 

 mony of their approbation of his conduct during the time he acted as their 

 Curator." 



Mr. Baxter, most of our readers are aware, is the son of the much 

 respected curator of the Botanic Garden, Oxford. He compiled, under our 



