on the Site of Smithfield Market. 3197 



5th. Amusement. — Simply considered as a place of amusement, — 

 a place where the seekers of pleasure might continually meet their 

 friends, might exhibit their best dresses, lounge on the softest otto- 

 mans, listen to the best music, enjoy the scent of the sweetest and 

 the sight of the loveliest flowers, and the shade of loaded orange- 

 trees and of graceful palm-trees ; might do all this without the 

 usual inconvenience of late hours, heated rooms, vitiated atmos- 

 phere, certain headaches, and that dreadful feeling of ennui and 

 lassitude which nocturnal revels and dissipation inevitably bring, — 

 surely this is something to achieve. Say it is idle and frivolous, it is 

 still the substitution of a healthful and invigorating for an unhealthy 

 and debilitating frivolity, and this is no despicable change ; indeed, 

 I feel convinced that the right-minded will consider it exactly the 

 reverse. Let those who will, enter the list against frivolity : I decline 

 so Quixotic an attempt. But make frivolity beneficial, and you ac- 

 complish a very reasonable object. I would have a band, the best 

 that could be procured, to play for two hours every Saturday after- 

 noon during the winter and spring months, omitting only those 

 months when the band plays in the gardens of the Zoological Society. 

 I would on no account interfere with the prior claim of that admir- 

 able institution. By this arrangement, the company who frequented 

 the out-of-door promenade in Regent's Park during the summer, w T ould 

 have the opportunity of attending the indoors garden during the winter. 



6th. Accessibility. — Whoever will take the trouble to examine a 

 map of London, will find that West Smithfield occupies the exact geo- 

 graphical centre. It is therefore equally accessible to all. Let us 

 compare this with the situation of the Crystal Palace at Kensington, 

 which it is proposed to convert into a vast conservatory or winter 

 garden, open alike to pedestrians and equestrians. From the Post 

 Office or St. Paul's it takes the traveller sixty-five minutes to reach 

 the Crystal Palace, sixty-five minutes to return, and costs him one 

 shilling ; from the Town Hall in the Borough, the India House, or 

 Finsbury Square, the time occupied is full ten minutes more, or seven- 

 ty-five minutes in all. All these spots are in the great thoroughfares. 

 From any less frequented part the time would be greater. Two hours 

 and a half may be taken as a fair average of the time occupied in 

 passing to and from a Hyde-Park conservatory ; the time occupied in 

 passing to and from the Smithfield glazed garden from the same loca- 

 lities, would average twenty-six minutes, supposing the visitor to 

 walk ; twenty minutes, supposing him to patronize an omnibus ; six- 

 teen minutes, supposing him to indulge in a cab. An average of two 



