THE SQUARES, PLACES, CHURCH GARDENS, ETC. 87 



would accrue from the naturalization of the square amongst 

 us. He understood the necessity of a place of refuge, rest, 

 and freshness for those who have never carried their desires 

 even so far as the Passy omnihus, or even the railway to the 

 Bois de Boulogne. He has consequently bestowed on our 

 capital the squares of St. Jacques la Boucherie, St. Clothilde, 

 the Temple, Louvois, des Arts et Metiers, and the Pare Mon- 

 ceaux. These masses of vegetation widely distributed 

 amongst the most populous neighbourhoods cleanse the air 

 by absorbing the miasmatic exhalations, thus enabling 

 every one to breathe freely. 



" The time has passed when a plate of copper exposed to 

 the air in one of the streets now demolished, would become 

 covered with oxide in a single night. This is a question of 

 public health that it is most important to bring forward. 

 Before the establishment of the Paris squares the existence 

 of a great number of children was passed in confined and 

 unwholesome districts. The fresh air for them was only the 

 threshold of that vitiated atmosphere that we have just been 

 speaking of. They were obliged to take a long walk before 

 they could find a patch of verdure or a bit of country. 

 The children went out but little ; it was useless to dress 

 them or make them clean, because they never went out of 

 their own neighbourhood, and in this way their early years 

 passed away. How many times have we not noticed with 

 painful emotion these little, ragged, pale creatures, who 

 never apparently thought of the filth in which they were 

 obliged to live ! 



" Now, thank God, this dark picture has become bright. 

 Within a couple of steps of the poor man's house there are 

 trees, flowers, and gravel-walks where his children can run 

 about, and clean and comfortable seats where their parents 

 may sit together and talk. Family ties are strengthened, 

 and the workman soon understands that there are calmer 

 and more moral pleasures than those he has been used to 

 seek in the wine-shop. Again, the different degrees of the 

 members of the working classes meet together on common 

 ground, and parental feeling is developed by emulation. A 

 child must not be allowed to be ragged for fear of its being 



