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14
play grounds also, on a sufficiently large scale, if only
for the use of children attending such Schools; but so
far from this having been done, it is very rare to find
even a strip of spare ground around the Schools. In
the instance above recorded in this Hamlet, there was
ample surplus space for a large play ground, but this
will be, I understand, covered with houses. Auy new
and comprehensive Building Act for the Metropolis
should contain clauses for the enforced provision of
play grounds for children, if not for recreation grounds
for adults as well. In every populous district grown
people can promenade with benefit in wide, well-made
roads, but children cannot have their natural and
necessary play there. The recently withdrawn Building
Bill, of the Metropolitan Board, was not intended as a
comprehensive sanitary measure, as it contained no
new provisions having such tendency. Peoples' Parks
are valuable for health in many ways, but the conventional
recreation legislated for, is not of the kind
essential to promote the health of children and improve
their physical and mental development. To provide
for the healthy rearing of children must be one of the
elementary principles of public hygiene, and as such
ought to obtain immediate practical condsideration; but
if these reasons are insufficient, then I would urge it
upon those of humanity; with unhealthy homes and no
out-door place of resort but the streets, how can we
expect children to become vigorous and good. There
was only required the latest refinement of philanthropic
inhumanity, by which a family may be consigned to the
altitude of a top story, in a Peabody or Waterlow
dwelling, to complete the despair of ever hoping to see
in the Metropolis a poor man's home built consistently
with health and comfort. I have heard very many
complaints, especially from elderly people, of the
suffering inflicted upon them in having to climb so