130 LONDON PARKS & GARDENS 
Sundays—who walk about, or lounge, or listen to the 
bands, or to what appears still more stimulating, to the 
impassioned harangue of some would-be reformer or 
earnest preacher. The densely-packed audiences, the 
gesticulations and heated and declamatory arguments, are 
not confined to Hyde Park. Victoria Park gathers just 
such assemblies, and every park could make more or 
less the same boast. The seats are equally full in each 
and all, and the grass as thickly strewn with prostrate 
forms. Perambulators are as numerous and children 
as conspicuous in the north, south, and eastern parks 
as in those of the west. 
In looking round the parks it will be well to take 
a glance at the smaller ones, then to consider each of 
the larger ones more in detail, in every case missing 
out some of the obvious appendages which are 
characteristic of all. 
How pathetic some of these little parks are, and what 
a part they play in the lives of those who live in the 
dingy streets near. Take, for instance, one with a 
high-sounding name, Avondale Park. It is little more 
than ten minutes’ walk from Shepherd’s Bush Station or 
Notting Hill Gate. Yet, on inquiry for the most direct 
road, nobody can give a satisfactory answer. One man 
will say, “ I have lived here for years and never heard of 
it ” ; another, “ I don’t think it can be in this district.” 
The same would be the result even nearer to it; but ask 
for the recreation ground, and any child will tell you. 
“ Down the first narrow turning and to the right again, 
by the pawnbroker at the corner.” It is a melancholy 
shop, with the plain necessaries of life and tiny babies’ 
boots for sale on the trays outside the door—what a 
volume of wretchedness and poverty those poor things 
