NATURE NOTES. 
J96 
Footpath Preservation. — The following important letter from Miss 
Octavia Hill appeared in the Times of September 14th : — 
“An important point of law bearing on the preservation of footpaths has 
recently come to my notice, which it would be well to bring to the knowledge 
of the public, with a view to its undergoing alteration in the ne.xt session of 
Parliament. 
“ In a countr}' parish with which I am well acquainted the largest landowner 
desired to close one footpath and divert another. They were of small moment to 
many of the resident gentry, who, as a rule, drive to their houses, and have parks, 
large gardens, or wood-paths in their own possession. But they formed pleasant 
walks for the poorer people, and as they lay between the village and the station 
they were much frequented. The feeling, therefore, among the poor was strongly 
in favour of keeping the paths. A vestry meeting was called to consider the mat- 
ter, and on a show of hands the proposition to close and divert the paths was lost. 
A poll was thereupon demanded on behalf of the landowner, and a day appointed 
on which it was to be taken. Residents in the neighbourhood consulted authori- 
ties in London, as they could hardly believe it possible that the votes on such a 
subject would be reckoned according to the property of the voter. That is to say, 
that every ratepayer assessed under would have one vote onl)’, and that every 
£,2^ additional assessment gave an additional vote up to si.x votes. It seemed 
hardly possible that in a matter involving no expenditure of rates a preponderance 
of weight should be given to the richer voters, who are precisely those who are 
least interested. But this proved to be the case, and the statute, which was doubt- 
less intended to preserve ratepayers from unreasonable burdens, is av.ailable to 
enable them to vote away the birthright of their poorer neighbours. Surely it is 
important that the law should be altered. 
“ In the case above referred to, an enthusiastic open-air meeting was held by 
the villagers as a protest against the scheme, and at the poll 75 of them recorded 
their votes against it ; but 39 richer people, whose votes counted as 103, over- 
weighted them, and the highway board has decided that its function is purely 
ministerial, and that it is bound to consider that the ‘ wish of the inhabitants’ is 
in favour of the proposed alteration. M'hat the justices and the Court of Quarter 
Sessions will do remains to be seen. But the method of measuring local opinion 
seems to need alteration. 
“ These field-paths are, so to speak, the inheritance of the landless people, and 
it would seem an anomaly to give to the larger owners a preponderance of weight 
in deciding about these thin lines of path, wLich afford pleasant ways, and open a 
sight of wood, and field, and stream, highways of the Queen, and therefore of the 
least of her subjects, growdng every year of greater value to them, yet the number 
of which is yearly being diminished. Surely the care of them should commend 
itself to the attention of our legislators, for they are among England’s best pos- 
sessions, and should be kept for her people now' and in the years to come.” 
The Rural World devotes a portion of its space every week to reports of 
matters connected with the preservation of footpaths, open spaces, &c., and is 
evidently doing excellent Selbornian work in this direction. Unfortunately the 
paper is so strongly, not to say violently, political that we can hardly recommend 
it to our readers generally, among whom we are glad to say we number many in 
all the political camps. 
An Englisli Garden. — “ From under the mulberry tree where we are 
sitting to write this — a dear old tree, that has borne its luscious fruit in another 
century than ours — we look around us. Pompon chrysanthemums, with hardy 
russet faces, range themselves along the border where pink and purple columbines 
—the ‘ grannie’s mutches ’ of our }'ounger days — have given them place ; behind, 
a small passion-flow er, black-purple in his rage of climbing, reaches a tendril here 
and there to catch them bj' the neck. He is so old that his name is lost to us, 
only year after year he races over the old pink brick-work in company with a 
clematis as abandoned as himself. The dahlias are flaunting above the graves of 
the yellow day-lilies, and the tremendous hollyhocks drop their port-wine petals 
to where the carnation watches over her family of ‘ slips ; ’ a spicy wind gets up 
in her neighbourhood and shakes the scales from the shields of the honesty till 
she shows to all the garden the silver of her face. With a little winter tending 
and tenderness, the heliotrope and lemon verbena live as bushes in our beds, and 
in June we sow the night-stock and watch for the white nicotiana to rise like a 
