134 THE PARKS AND GARDENS OF PARIS. [Chap. IX. 



additional warmth and dryness could hardly fail to have a bene- 

 ficial effect on the health of the inmates, besides other manifest 

 advantages which such buildings possess. Our narrow streets, and 

 flimsy houses, and the want of anything like a generally recognised 

 plan, are worthy only of a period when men first herded together 

 within walls for security, not of the Victorian era. No sprinkling 

 about of disinfecting agents when danger becomes imminent, or 

 pulling down of a few shops th|t have protruded themselves so 

 far into the narrow street that they have become intolerable even 

 to those accustomed to dodge through the streets of London, will 

 touch more than the surface-roots of the evil. We want a plan 

 with the Thames Embankment for its backbone. There is nothing 

 to prevent us having the embellishments seen in Continental 

 cities, minus their trees in tubs and paltrier features. But to 

 have them it is indispensable that we first have breadth and room, 

 that the street-traffic may circulate freely. Footways and roads, 

 wide and open, are the first a^d greatest necessaries, and they ought 

 to be planted with trees, which thrive better in London than in 

 Paris. No fancy-gardening, no stone work, vases, griffins, expensive 

 fountains, and fountain-basins — nothing whatever of that type 

 — should be tolerated until free air be enabled to penetrate 

 into the heart of the town, through open verdure-bordered roads ; 

 which indeed would induce it to ignore the boundary line that 

 now so widely marks the difference between town and country. 

 Pure air and light are naturally the property of all; but 

 civilized man repels them by his stupid arrangement of our cities. 

 To make them once more, even in cities, the property of all should 

 be the aim of all. 



The conditions complained of do not simply occur in central 

 parts of London where land is very dear : far beyond the radius 

 of the parks, the arrangements of streets are frequently quite as 

 bad as in the more central districts, and capital preparations are 

 being made to secure a dozen years hence a suburban cordon of 

 districts like St. Giles's. To experience the truth of this the 

 reader has merely to go from Kensington Gardens to Kew— not 

 the most unpleasant stroll that could be selected in suburban 

 London. In the course of his journey he will find in the least- 

 populated parts pleasant open roads, in some cases wider than a 

 boulevard, and with useless spaces railed off, and gravelled spaces 



