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35
without proper air-space, and play-grounds in proportion
to the young population. It is a sad thing to
see multitudes of young children at play in Woodchester,
Cirencester, and Clarendon Streets, where
they get no healthy sport, many of them are seen
sitting on the kerbstone, breathing over gully gratings
for half an hour at a time.
In all crowded neighbourhoods landowners should
be compelled, under an efficient Building Act, to set
apart, or reserve under fixed certain conditions, open
spaces, to be planted with trees, if only as a sanitary
necessity for young children.
If now they were provided, and judiciously managed
by municipal authority out of rates, these open spaces
might not prove a burden.
A cricket ground, with a gymnasium for athletic
sports would yield an income; bands of music, volunteer
drill, and flower-shows would be attractions tending to
improve the value of property. Building-ground
should never be allowed to be laid out without an open
space of some kind. It will be wanted some day in
these crowded neighbourhoods to place a temporary
tent hospital, to treat fever as only fever and other
epidemics can be properly treated, under canvas,
(easily warmed and safe), in all kinds of weather.
London, generally, is singularly destitute of open
spaces. "Why is it," asks Charles Kingsley, "that
there are not covered places where people can take
refuge from a shower of rain ?" He also asks very
pertinently, "Are not many persons drawn to the
public-house for want of suitable places for rest ? "