Domestic Notices : — England. 1 y 9 



the climate, having air-holes instead of windows, and the rooms are open 

 above, with no other covering than the roof. Still we found our social circle 

 in the evenings after sunset extremely agreeable ; and we amused ourselves in 

 a somewhat broken Spanish, and a general smoking of cigars, in which even 

 the ladies, without any exception, took a part. (Garten Zeitung.) 



Art. III. Domestic Notices. 

 ENGLAND. 



BUILDING Villas on the Site of the Kitchen-Gardens at Kensington. (From a 

 Correspondent.) — As it appears that the plan of lotting off the ground 

 lately occupied by the kitchen-gardens at Kensington for villa sites is to be 

 carried out, I lose no time in making some observations which I had 

 prepared when the plan was first brought forward, and which were reserved 

 until it should be more matured, as I had some hopes it might be with- 

 drawn by the proposers, whom I suppose to be the same that originated the 

 notable scheme of selling off the plants and breaking up the establishment at 

 Kew, from which the public were only saved by the active vigilance of some 

 members of both houses of parliament. It is certainly singular that almost 

 the only legislative measure to be carried on in this short session should be 

 this ; and that the new government, who are to repudiate the plans of their 

 predecessors, should have at once adopted this, to us, most objectionable one. 

 We cannot forget that it is to the same party we owe the demolition of the 

 magnificent trees in Carlton Gardens, and the forming of the embankment at 

 an enormous expense ; the wretched architecture which occupies the finest 

 site in London; and, but for the resolute interference of William IV., the 

 exclusion (which was the real object) of the public from access to the Park 

 from Waterloo Place. These plans, in which both parties are concerned, 

 only show the necessity of the utmost vigilance on the part of those who have 

 it in their power to check the proceedings of administrations, and who, I 

 hope, will come forward on this occasion, and arrest the course of this 

 measure. 



I do not at all blame the government for carrying out the plan of making 

 a large and proper kitchen establishment at Windsor, and suppressing all the 

 minor and detached branches ; quite the contrary. I very much approve 

 of it ; and only wish that instead of a number of the most paltry palaces in 

 Europe, we had two or three good ones, and the rest done away. All I 

 object to is the mode of providing for it. The space no longer wanted for the 

 use of the palace should be given to the public, which, under reservations and 

 proper restrictions, has a right and claim to access to these gardens and parks. 

 In the vast increase now taking place in every direction of the metropolis, every 

 inch of ground which can be reserved from the dealers in ground rents and 

 brick and mortar should be so ; and the parks are at present by no means too 

 large, but the contrary. The site in question has other claims to be reserved 

 for some better purpose than the paltry one it is destined to. From its dis- 

 tance from the mass of buildings and manufactories, the smoke of which is so 

 destructive to vegetation almost everywhere else, it may be judiciously applied 

 to purposes which cannot be effected in parts nearer to them ; and there are 

 many purposes both of use and ornament to which it may be converted. 



The paltry and miserable sum of 1000/. per annum, to obtain which, it 

 appears, is the object of the plan, is sufficient]}' characteristic of us ; and as 

 no other public ground is brought forward to support it, I hope that 

 the whole metropolis, which is interested in it, will stir and meet in the 

 parishes to protest against it, and call the attention of the members, without 

 distinction of party, for it is no party question, to protest and raise their voices 

 against it before it be too late. — IV. September 20. 



Dartmoor Granite as a building Material. — Dr. Buckland, at the Plymouth 

 meeting, exhibited a series of specimens from Lord Morley's granite quarries, 



