will not dwell now on the good that might be done by the purchase and
management of the houses of the poor, by teaching, by entertainments
for them, by oratorios, by excursions, by the gift of beautiful
things. I will only point out now that as guardians or vestrymen the
most influential sphere of work presents itself. If you try to get
into Parliament, many men of equal education, high principles, and
refinement probably contest the place with you; if you succeed they
fail; if you try to make a name among the fashionable or wealthy
circles, you may or may not succeed; but if you fail no one misses
you much. But if, instead of trying to get high up, you were to try
to get down low, what a position of usefulness you would have! You
would learn much from vigorous colleagues, much I fancy which would
make you ashamed; but what might not they gain, what might not the
locality gain, if the administration of its affairs were carried on
under the influence of men of education! As guardians, how you might
see to the poor, leading them back to independence in most thoughtful
ways, watching over them individually that no wrong was done! As
vestrymen, how you might be on the side of far-sighted expenditure or
the suppression of corruption! When I see people all struggling to get
up higher, they seem to me like people in a siege, who should all rush
to defend the breach for the glory and renown of it, and trample one
another to death, and leave little doors unwatched all round the town;
and I can't help wondering sometimes why more of them don't pray Marion
Erle's prayer when she leaves the wedding-dress unfinished to go and
nurse the fever-stricken patient, "Let others miss me, never miss me,
God."
I don't the least mean that the works I have suggested are the only
ones, or the best, or even that always that _kind_ of work may be best.
The form that charity takes in this age or in that must be decided by
the requirements of the time, and these I describe may be as transient
as others. Only never let us excuse ourselves from seeking the best
form in the indolent belief that no good form is possible, and things
are better left alone; nor, on the other hand, weakly plead that what
we do is _benevolent_. We must ascertain that it is really _beneficent_
too.
VI.
OPEN SPACES.[8]
All that is strictly practical that I have to say to-day could be
summed up in a very few words. I have no changes in the law to suggest.
I have not thought it well to relate the past history of inclosures,
nor even to prepare for you statistics, neither have I touched on
recent legislation respecting commons. I have had but one end in view
in writing this paper--the laying out and opening small central spaces
as public gardens.
I have to interest you in accomplishing the object. "There is little
to see, and little to say; it is only to do it," as was once said by a
hard worker. I cannot transport you all to see the good sample-work
which there is in some few neighbourhoods in London. I can, therefore,
only ask you to let me describe in some detail the need of these
gardens, then what has been, and what, it seems to me, should be,
done, with various kinds of small spaces. This paper contains this
description and information, as to the very simple preliminary steps
necessary to be taken to render some of these spaces available for
public use; but though so much of it is thus necessarily descriptive,
it is only on the ground of its bearing on distinct practical results
that I trouble you with it.
There are two great wants in the life of the poor of our large towns,
which ought to be realised more than they are--the want of space, and
the want of beauty. It is true that we have begun to see that a whole
family living in one room is very crowded, and we have been for some
years well aware that it would be a good thing if we could manage so
to build that a working man could pay for two or even three rooms;
it is true that we have learned that the extreme narrowness of our
courts and alleys, and the tiny spaces, often only four or five feet
square, called by courtesy "yards," which are to be found at the back
of many of the houses filled with families of the poor, appear to us
insufficient. We wish we could enlarge them, we wish that Building Acts
had prevented landlords thus covering with rent-producing rooms the
gardens or larger yards which once existed at the back of high houses;
and we are alive to the duty of trying to obviate, as soon as may be,
this want of space, to any degree to which it may yet be possible.
But there is a way in which some compensation for this evil may be
provided, which appears only to have begun lately to dawn upon the
perception of men. I mean the provision of small open spaces, planted
and made pretty, quite near the homes of the people, which might be
used by them in common as sitting-rooms in summer. Even in England
there are a good many days when at some hours sitting out of doors is
refreshing, and when very hot days do come, it seems almost a necessity.
I fancy very few of you know what a narrow court near Drury Lane or
Clerkenwell is on a sultry August evening. The stifling heat, the dust
lying thick everywhere, the smell of everything in the dirty rooms,
the baking, dry glare of the sun on the west window of the low attic,
just under the roof, making it seem intolerable--like an oven. The
father of the family which lives there, you may be pretty sure, is
round the corner at the public-house, trying to quench his thirst with
liquor which only increases it; the mother is either lolling out of
the window, screaming to the fighting women below, in the court, or
sitting, dirty and dishevelled, her elbow on her knee, her chin on
her hand, on the dusty, low door-step, side by side with a drunken
woman who comments with foul oaths on all who pass. The children,
how they swarm! The ground seems alive with them, from the neglected
youngest crawling on the hot stones, clawing among the shavings, and
potato-peelings, and cabbage-leaves strewn about, to the big boy and
girl "larking" in vulgarest play by the corner. The sun does not
penetrate with any purifying beams to the lower stories of the houses,
but beats on their roofs, heating them like ovens. The close staircase
is sultry, the dust-bins reek, the drains smell, all the dirty bedding
smells, the people's clothes smell. The wild cries of the thirsty,
heated, irritated crowd driven to drink, the quarrelling children's
voices echo under the low and narrow archway by which you enter the
court. Everyone seems in everyone else's way. You begin to wonder
whether a human being, man, woman, or child, is in very deed in any
sense precious, either to God who made them, or to their own family,
or to their fellow-citizens. Somehow you wonder whether, when one of
them is carried out by the undertaker at last, to use a common old
saying, "His room is not worth more than his company," so fearful is
the life to which people take under such conditions, so terribly does
the need of a little more space strike you, so impossible seems any
quiet in which tone might be recovered by these exhausted creatures.
And yet every one of those living beings, crowding almost under your
feet, having to move from doorway or stair as you enter, has a human
form, a human character too; somebody knows and loves him, some mother,
father, sister, brother, child, watches for that face among the many,
and would feel a great gap left in the world if that one came never
any more up the court. Even the reeling drunkard would be missed. Each
is surrounded by a love which makes him precious, each has also some
germ and gleam of good in him, something you can touch, or lead, or
strengthen, by which in time he might become the man he was meant to
be. Each is a child of God, meant by him for some good thing. Put him
in a new colony with wood, or heath, or prairie round him, or even
lead him into the quiet of your own study, and you will begin to see
what is in the man. It is this dreadful crowding of him with hundreds
more, this hustling, jostling, restless, struggling, noisy, tearing
existence, which makes him seem to himself or you so useless, which
makes him be so little what he might be. Can you give him a little
pause, a little more room, especially this sultry summer afternoon?
I think you may. There are, all over London, little spots unbuilt over,
still strangely preserved among the sea of houses--our graveyards.
They are capable of being made into beautiful out-door sitting-rooms.
They should be planted with trees, creepers should be trained up their
walls, seats should be placed in them, fountains might be fixed there,
the brightest flowers set there, possibly in some cases birds in cages
might be kept to delight the children. To these the neighbouring poor
should be admitted free, under whatever regulations should seem best.
The regulations will vary according to the size of the ground and
other local circumstances. In some cases where the ground is large
it might, no doubt, be thrown absolutely open, as Leicester Square
is, a man being always in attendance to keep order, though the people
will themselves help to keep order very soon. In the case of very
small grounds admission might be given to certain numbers by tickets
placed in the hands of guardians, schoolmasters, ministers of all
denominations, Bible-women, and district visitors. Though, no doubt,
much supervision would be needed at first, after a time an old man, any
not too feeble old pensioner, especially if fortified with some kind of
uniform, would be amply sufficient, if always there, to keep order.
His wages would be small, and employing him would be a double charity.
In these gardens, near to their own homes, and therefore easily
accessible to the old and feeble, they might sit quietly under trees;
there the tiny children might play on gravel or grass, with a sense of
Mother Earth beneath them. There comrades might meet and talk, whose
homes are too small and wretched for them to sit there in comfort, and
for whom the public-house is too often the only place to meet in, or to
read the newspaper. If visitors could gather small groups of children
together, and use these out-door sitting-rooms as places to teach them
games, read to them, or get leave for them to train the creepers up the
wall, much good might be done, and much of the evil of playing in the
streets prevented.
It is to the conversion of these churchyards into gardens that I would
specially turn your attention to-day; there are a vast number of them
all over London, as shown in a map prepared by the Commons Preservation
Society, 1, Great College Street, Westminster.
I have ventured to draw the attention of some few London vicars
to the question, and if you would each of you look in any crowded
neighbourhood known to you, what might be done, and bring the question
before the incumbents, churchwardens, or leading vestrymen, a great
many of these graveyards might rapidly be made available. Of course
there may be special local difficulties here and there, but the process
is very simple where there is no opposition; and if those parishes
where there is none would lead the way, that would soon bring the
others to follow so good an example. The first step to be taken is to
secure the leave of the incumbent of the parish. Notice must then be
placed on the church-doors giving notice that a vestry meeting will be
called to consider the scheme. The vestry then obtains a faculty from
the Dean of Arches. The vestry can then be asked for a grant, and they
can apply to the Metropolitan Board of Works for a further grant. In
the case of St. George's-in-the-East £1,200 was voted by the vestry,
and £3,000 by the Metropolitan Board of Works. This was of course a
specially expensive scheme, the churchyard itself being large, and
the freehold of adjoining ground, which was formerly a burial-ground
belonging to dissenters, having to be absolutely bought. The expense
in the case of the Drury Lane ground was about £160; the vestry became
responsible for the whole, but hope the neighbouring parishes and
private persons will help. It appears to me that the vestries should in
the first instance be applied to, though doubtless private people would
gladly help if necessary.
It may be interesting to you to know, so far as I can tell you, what
has already been done in planting and opening churchyards. Mr. Harry
Jones has induced his vestry to co-operate with him, and has made
a public garden of the churchyard of St. George's-in-the-East. He
obtained the hearty co-operation of his parishioners, and the place
bears the stamp of being one in which they feel they all have a share.
I believe the churchwarden gave the fountain, and the vestry, instead
of having to be urged on to spend more, actually ordered 24,000 bulbs
this spring, in their enthusiasm to make the place bright and pretty!
The high wall covered with spikes, which separated the church from the
dissenting burial-ground, has been pulled down, and the whole thrown
into one. The ground has been laid out with grass, flower-beds, broad
gravel walks, and plenty of seats have been placed there. The day I was
last there, there were many people in the garden, one or two evidently
convalescents. The ground was in perfect order, a gardener and one man
being in attendance; but the people, though evidently of the lower
class, were clearly impressed with a feeling that the garden should
be respected. In fact the special feature of this garden seemed to me
to be the evident sense of its being common property--something that
everyone had had a share in doing, and in which they had a common
interest. The tombstones are all removed, but measurements were taken,
and an authorised plan made of the ground, showing precisely the place
of every grave, also a certified copy of every tombstone has been
entered in a large book. These precautions for carefully preserving
power of identifying the spot where any body is buried, and securing
the record of the inscription, have entirely satisfied the owners of
graves and the legal authorities, and it would be well for vicars
having disused churchyards to remember the plan as one which has met
all difficulties in the way of removing tombstones.
The little churchyard in Bishopsgate which has been planted is probably
well known to most of you. It is, I believe, a delight to many. A
friend said to me the other day, "I often pass through it; it is
certainly very nice. The only thing I am sorry about is that they
have taken away the peacock and put two swans instead." "Are they not
as pretty?" I asked. "Oh, I daresay they are," he replied; "it was
the swans I was thinking of, they have so small a space, while the
peacock was quite happy, because he always had plenty of people to
admire his tail!" The Rev. G. M. Humphreys brought the question of
opening the little burial-ground in Drury Lane before the notice of
the St. Martin's-in-the-Fields vestry. They agreed to carry forward
the work, and it was opened last week to the people as a garden. It is
a refreshing breathing-space in a terribly crowded neighbourhood. It
is bounded by a small piece of ground on the north which is admirably
fitted for a block of dwellings for working people. If the Duke of
Bedford, to whom I understand it belongs, would build, or arrange for
others to build there, a block of houses where abundant air would be
secured to them, and transfer there the population of some crowded
court, he would do a great and good work.
By-the-way, this paper was written before the news reached me of the
temporary closing of the garden until such time as the vestry have
decided in what way to regulate the admission of the public in future.
As much will doubtless be heard of this temporary closing, I may as
well explain, that my friend, Miss Cons, was there on Thursday, and
saw the extent of mischief done, and went pretty thoroughly into the
whole question. There does not appear to have been any destructiveness
of mischievous feeling--the people availed themselves in such crowds
of the privilege of going in, that the ivy was very much trampled on,
and the yuccas which had been planted in the middle of the gravel
without any sort of protection had their leaves spoiled; but the
shrubs were hardly injured, nor does there appear to have been any
intentional mischief done. It is hardly wonderful that the ivy should
be trampled on, seeing that no low wire fence, such as guards the
beds in Leicester Square, nor little hoops, such as protect them in
St. George's-in-the-East, had been placed. At the same time I may add
that, seeing how very small the ground is in proportion to the dense
population near Drury Lane, in the letter in which I brought the
subject of planting it before the vicar, I suggested opening it by
tickets distributed by workers in the district, rather than throwing it
absolutely open to everyone. I thought that might have been done later,
if it were found possible. I also pointed out to the man in charge, as
I left the ground last week, that _at first_ much supervision would be
needed. If the vestry has the smallest doubt about the possibility of
succeeding in keeping it in order, I have not the smallest hesitation
in undertaking to do it for them for a year, if they like to trust me
with it, and so meet the first difficulties by special individual care,
and prove the possibility of conducting the experiment there, as well
as it has been done in St. George's-in-the-East. But I have no doubt
they will see their way effectually to carry through the good work they
have begun, only I have not had time to communicate with them yet.
The large churchyard in the Waterloo Road is in process of being turned
into a garden. The Rev. Arthur Robinson has collected £290, and is
laying it out more like a country garden, and less like a place planned
by a Board of Works, than any other I have seen. He has stumps prepared
for ferns to grow on (and wants some, by-the-way, which some of you
might send him); he has a nice bank, winding walks between the turf,
knows which side of the church his wisteria will grow, spoke with hope
of getting the large blue clematis to flower, wants numberless creepers
to cover the church walls, and to wreathe around and make beautiful
the few tombs which he leaves unmoved because relatives are still
living and care to retain them. I understand he purposes applying to
the vestry for help, and in view of the many churchyards there are to
deal with, this would seem the right thing to do in general. At the
same time, I can see we should get a more country-like garden, the more
the planning of it could be left in the hands of a man of culture, who
loves plants and colour.
I believe St. Pancras Churchyard is now open as a garden; Limehouse is,
I understand, thus utilised as far as the tombstones allow. The Rev. W.
Allen has got his parishioners to memorialise the vestry to take some
steps towards opening the ground in Bermondsey, but hitherto without
success, and there may be others either now laid out or in progress--I
earnestly hope there are--of which I have no knowledge.
I regret to say that an attempt to induce the Quakers to appropriate to
the same purpose a burial-ground belonging to them in Bunhill Fields
has utterly failed. The ground was one which would have been of almost
more value for the purpose than any I know in London. It is close
to Whitecross Street, which some of you may know as a street quite
swarming with costermongers; the houses there are tunnelled every few
yards with archways leading to as crowded courts as I know anywhere.
Many houses of the poor actually overlooked the ground. In Coleman
Street, which bounds the ground on the north, is a factory from which
crowds of workmen turn out daily at dinner-time, many, no doubt, to
adjourn to the public-house. But one hot day last summer, when I was
there, dozens of them were sitting on the dusty pavement, their backs
leaning against the great, dead, heated wall, which hid from them the
space occupied by the burial-ground. There is not a tombstone in it,
and it might have been planted and thrown open easily. Last summer I
wrote to the Quakers, hearing they were about to sell the ground for
building, laying before them the reasons for devoting it to the public
as a garden. After urging them to give it thus to the poor themselves,
I added a request that if they did not see their way to do this, they
would at least pause to enable me and my friends who were interested
in such undertakings to see whether we could not raise enough money to
secure it for the poor, even if they determined to exact for it full
building-land value. I certainly could hardly believe that Quakers
could thus sell land once devoted to their dead, and which had never
brought them in rent, but I thought it just possible they might
hesitate to give what belonged to the Society all to the poor. At any
rate, I was determined no want of effort on my part should lose for the
people so valuable and unique a space lying in the heart of a crowded
neighbourhood. My letter was never even considered by the meeting. The
company in treaty for the ground did not purchase it then, because they
thought it irreverent to disturb the dead. Yet although I have again
and again seen and written to leading Quakers about it, and addressed
several letters to their organ, _The Friend_, they have deliberately
just sold it for building. No builder could be found who liked to buy
the ground and disturb the bodies, and the Quakers themselves employed
workmen to accomplish the most ghastly unearthing of the contents of
the graves, uprooting five thousand bodies, which, I should think,
never was undertaken before. They are selling the land for dwellings
for the poor, and are excusing themselves by harping on the need of
dwellings; but the immediate neighbourhood is to be dealt with under
the Artisans Dwellings Bill, by means of which a large number of
healthy homes for the poor will be erected, while I fear there is no
chance of any other garden being made in their midst. And, especially
as only a portion of the Quakers' burial-ground is to be devoted to
workmen's dwellings, the number of rooms provided in the district will
not be sensibly affected. They have excused themselves, too, because
they have not dug up George Fox, but only some of their lesser leaders
and their nameless dead. Even if they formed a slightly different
estimate of the relative advantages of a few more rooms and a garden, I
own to an amazed sorrow that the Quakers rejected a scheme by which the
land might have been rendered a blessing to the living, without doing
violence to what seems to me to be a natural instinct of reverence,
ineradicable in every human heart, for whatever has been associated
with the loved, or the great and noble who are no longer with us. Nor
could I have borne, if I had been they, to draw so marked a distinction
between the unknown, who had surely been loved, and the known, who had
been famous, as to uproot five thousand bodies and spare George Fox's
grave. I am sorry English workmen were called in to "separate those who
had lain side by side for two centuries," that "the bones of young and
old were" by them "placed in coarse deal boxes and re-interred in a
large hole at the other end of the ground." That "many of them, while
awaiting this fresh burial, were piled in a rude heap in a corner,"
with carbolic acid poured over them. Is this the lesson our workmen
are to learn? Are they, too, valueless because so nameless? These poor
bodies now mouldering away were once animated by spirits of beloved men
and women. That which was once the form which embodied any human soul,
named or unnamed, would have seemed to me worth a little gentler care.
Better have let it mingle quietly with the dust and feed the trees and
the daisies, keeping the resting-place of the dead one also for the
weary and the poor.