THE PUBLIC PAEK. 



217 



to be overlooked that the public parks, and even the 

 smaller gardens in squares and streets, are fitted, if 

 skillfully distributed, to lessen the condensation of our 

 large cities, to extend their crowding buildings over a 

 wider surface, to rarefy the thick black clouds of smoke 

 which rise from them, and so to increase their light, 

 and to provide a larger supply of salubrious air for all 

 the inhabitants. In shoii, they are, as it were, the 

 lungs of cities and towns; aud as such they are breath- 

 ing-places to thousands who may never wander from 

 the streets within their actual precincts. 



Affording such advantages in the way of health and 

 comfort, it is rather singular that but few public parks 

 have been formed, and that most of them have been 

 of such recent introduction. Men are naturally gre- 

 garious animals. In the old times of warfare and 

 bloodshed, they kept close together for the sake of 

 mutual defense. It is remarkable how small an area 

 some of the ancient fortified towns occupied. Prob- 

 ably the original instinct of crowding together would 

 have continued to prevail, but for the example pre- 

 sented by those parks attached to the metropolitan 

 cities of Great Britain, to which we have already 

 alluded. Much penetration was not required, to per- 

 ceive that such wide spaces as Hyde Park, St. James' 

 Park, Phoenix Park, Dublin, the Queen's Park, Edin- 

 burgh, especially when thrown open by the munifi- 

 cence of successive sovereigns, were boons of the 

 highest value to the adjacent communities. It is only 

 surprising that a. discerning public was so slow to 

 discover that similar advantages were to be enjoyed 

 elsewhere. 



Doubtless there were some considerable obstacles in 

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