98 
THE FLORIST’S JOURNAL. 
since the introduction of steam-boats on the Thames. But this 
inconvenience, or fault,—if it be a fault,—is in no ways chargeable 
against the owners of the steam navigation ; because if there were 
a demand for landing and embarking at Kew, that demand would 
of course be as readily supplied there as at other places. We 
mention this with no imputation of blame to any one ; but merely 
because it shows that the public have an indifference for these 
gardens, which is neither very wise, nor very creditable to the 
taste and spirit of the nation. “ They manage matters differently 
in France,” and indeed in all the influential states and great cities 
of continental Europe ; for there, collections of plants, for the 
pleasurable sensations which the view of them affords, for the pur¬ 
poses of botanical study, or as appropriate ornaments to the 
mansions of the departed, rank high among those national or 
public matters in which the people take an interest, and which 
they both admire and respect. The consequence of this is appa¬ 
rent in the continental population, even in those classes which 
would be reckoned very low in the scale among so well-fed and 
furnished a people as the British. The humblest peasant or arti¬ 
san there will go and admire the plants and flowers ; but, having 
free access to them, he neither breaks the one, nor pulls the other. 
In the British populace, up to a much higher degree,—at least in 
wealth and all that wealth can afford,—the case is very different. 
They get to ornamented places by stealth, as it were ; and there¬ 
fore it is difficult for them to keep their hands from picking, or at 
all events from fingering, the ornaments. This propensity is a 
mischievous one in so far as public gardens and other ornamented 
places of resort are concerned ; and it is very doubtful whether it 
does not lead, in too many instances, to conduct of a far more serious 
nature. The correcting of this propensity by ornamented grounds 
open to the public, and protected until the inconsiderate part of the 
public learn to respect them, would be of itself a very salutary 
matter ; and would probably save, in the expense of criminal pro¬ 
secutions, ten times the amount which the grounds would cost. 
W hen this is duly weighed, and the moral effects—the softening 
of the animal passions, and the elevation of the general character— 
are taken into the account, they make the paltry saving, of some 
quarter of a farthing in the year from every one who pays taxes, 
kick the beam, as lighter than the most filmy gossamer that 
ever floated in an autumnal sky. 
