TOWN GARDENS 



roots of trees. And then there are the children. It is 

 they who are the sweetest flowers of the town gardens. 



If any man wants an argument in favour of keeping 

 every available space open in towns and cities let him go 

 into some crowded neighbourhood and watch the chil- 

 dren playing in the gutters of the streets. Then let him 

 find one of those places, a disused burial ground, or the 

 garden of an old square, which has been preserved, and 

 kept open, and laid out for the benefit of the children, and 

 he will see the difference at once. There are two such 

 places easy for the Londoner to visit, the one Browning 

 Hall Garden, now a garden, once the York Road Burial 

 Ground, Walworth, the other Meath Gardens, eleven 

 acres of public garden, once The Victoria Park Cemetery, 

 Bethnal Green. 



They say that one half of London doesn't know how 

 the other half lives. They do not know, but worse still 

 they don't care. It is equally true that half the people 

 who profess to care for flowers are ignorant of the won- 

 derful flower-beds carefully grown for their pleasure 

 within a two-penny 'bus ride of most parts of London. 

 The row of beds facing Park Lane ; the flower walk (where 

 the babies walk, too) in Kensington Gardens ; the flower 

 walk in Regent's Park, the Houses at Kew, are sights as 

 well worth an afternoon's excursion as any other form of 

 amusement. Most people almost unconsciously absorb 

 the colour of cities, vaguely realising grey streets, red 

 streets, white streets, spaces of grass and trees, big blots 

 of colour — like the huge beds of scarlet geraniums in 

 front of Buckingham Palace, but they do not trouble to 

 get the value of their impressions. People look on the 

 way from Hyde Park Corner to the Marble Arch as a 

 convenient means of crossing London instead of one of 

 the most interesting and delightful experiences to be had. 

 They go crazy over trees and sky in the country, when 



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