THE LUNGS OF LONDON.
THE Lungs of London, through which her large masses of population find
respiration and ventilation, are her parks, gardens, and pleasure
grounds.
The city is admirably provided with these oases, which occur frequently
in the great desert of brick and mortar.
Nothing can be more grateful to the eye of the stranger sojourning in
the English metropolis, than the frequent views which he encounters
of smooth bits of lawn, upon which large numbers of sheep browse
peacefully; acres of flower beds, in the care of the most celebrated
florists; sheets of water in which nude bathers are disporting
with perfect freedom; or long and wide expanses of green trees and
shrubbery, enclosed by high iron railings, but free to all the citizens
to enjoy and to hold forever.
[Sidenote: REGENT'S AND HYDE PARKS.]
Beside the parks and gardens, London has an infinity of squares,
commons, and crescents, which are surrounded by private residences and
inclosed by railings and walls--such as Trafalgar Square (public),
Bedford, Cavendish, St. George's, Grosvenor, Leicester, Soho, Belgrave,
Euston, Finsbury, Fitzroy, Portman, Russell, Wellclose, Hanover,
Brunswick, Eaton, Berkeley, Golden, Mecklenburg, Red Lion, Tavistock,
and a great number of other squares which I do not now call to mind.
The majority of these places have plots of grass and trees, with
fountains and flower-beds, varying in size from a quarter of an acre
to three acres in extent. Then again others have not a blade of grass
or a single shrub to dignify their lonely aridness, and the hum of
cartwheels and the noise of brawling men and women, are heard all day
and into the night ascending from them. Half a dozen of them, like
Belgrave, Grosvenor, and Berkeley Squares, are hemmed in on all sides
by the gloomy and palatial dwellings of the governing class of England,
who seek to absorb even a stray blade of grass, or the leaves of a
scantily clothed tree, sooner than allow the poor and degraded to enjoy
them.
And so we have green spots, like Golden and Soho, and Wellclose
Squares, exhibiting the various gradations from squalid poverty to
shabby gentility; and in Belgrave and Grosvenor Squares we have all
the indications of refinement, wealth, perfumery, silks, and satins,
combined with a resolve which says to Golden and Wellclose Squares,
"You are of a different nature from us. We belong to a class which
knows you not, and with whom you can never mingle--never. You are
polluted and degraded. We are the salt of the earth. We lock the iron
gates of our private squares, and you must not enter them; and yet we
have parks and preserves, and Swiss Chalets, and villas at Mentone and
Rome, and spas at Hombourg and Baden."
And accordingly and most dutifully misery shrinks by high iron walls in
the heart of London, or at most will only peer furtively through the
iron grating of Grosvenor and Belgrave Squares.
But the public parks belong to the people, and by the people they
are enjoyed most thoroughly. Children, old and young, gray-beard and
adolescent, all flock to these parks; and Regent's Park or Hyde Park,
on a summer Sunday afternoon is a splendid sight, and a similar one
cannot be obtained anywhere else but in Paris pleasure grounds, on a
Sunday, and it was Paris that first taught London to respire through
these public lungs of hers.
The dimensions of the public parks and gardens of London are as follows:
Battersea Park, 200 acres.
Kensington Gardens, 380 "
Finsbury Park (in progress), 300 "
Green Park, 71 "
Regent's Park, 450 "
Victoria Park, 290 "
Primrose Hill Park (Cricket Grounds), 50 "
St. James Park, 83 "
Hyde Park, 395 "
Southwark Park (not completed), 120 "
Kensington Oval, (for Cricket Ground), 12 "
Cremorne Garden, 10 "
Botanic Garden, Chelsea, 12 "
Royal Botanic Garden (Regent's Park), 20 "
Horticultural Gardens (Cheswick), 35 "
Kew Gardens, 60 "
Buckingham Palace Gardens, 40 "
Temple Gardens, 7 "
Zoological Gardens, 18 "
Greenwich Park, 200 "
Richmond Park, 2,253 "
-----
5,006 "
Here are five thousand acres of parks, pleasure grounds, gardens, and
cricket fields, all in fine order, and under careful and economical
supervision. Surely London is well provided for in the way of open
air amusement. Besides, bands play in the different parks and squares
almost daily. In St. James Park, Regent's Park, and Hyde Park, bands
play every afternoon in inclosures set apart for that purpose. Some of
these bands are formed of old musicians and veterans who have served in
the Crimean and Indian wars. There is a body of men distributed over
London, who wear a uniform of semi-military fashion, and are called
the "Corps of Commissionaires," who can be sent on errands, with or
for packages or letters, and from this body two full bands have been
formed, who earn a decent subsistence by playing in St. James Park and
Regent's Park, every pleasant afternoon during summer.
[Sidenote: WHAT THE PARKS CONTAIN.]
In the inclosures, where these bands furnish music, chairs are
arranged, and all persons who enter and take seats are expected to
contribute two-pence toward the musicians for the pleasure of hearing
the music.
[Illustration: BATHING IN HYDE PARK.]
There are also sheets of water in Regent's Park, Victoria Park,
Battersea Park, St. James' Park, and Kensington Gardens. The sheet of
water, or stream, in Hyde Park, is known as the "Serpentine River,"
from its sinuous course. This is quite a large sheet of water, and is
much frequented for free bathing, on warm days in the heated term.
Here, thousands of people may be seen on a sultry afternoon, plunging
to and fro in the cool waters, and in case of any accident--for the
water is deep--the boats, ropes and drags of the Royal Humane Society's
Life Saving Apparatus, are always ready for immediate use, and numbers
of people are rescued and taken from the Serpentine, and resuscitated.
When the winter months come, and the Serpentine becomes frozen over,
the Londoners congregate there in great numbers to skate, or play at
golf or curling.
There is a large lake in the Regent's Park ornamented with small,
well-wooded islands, and in Kensington Gardens there is one of the
finest museums of art, science, and curiosities, in the world. There
are rocky dells, and grounds for sham fights, in Hyde Park, there are
the rarest exotics in the Palm House at Kew, and every known species of
bird, beast, reptile, and fowl, may be found in the Zoological Gardens,
which comprises eighteen acres of space in the Regent's Park.
In Richmond Park, which is ten miles distant from the London Post
Office Centre, there are two thousand three hundred acres of hill,
dale, plain, and forest, and here are to be found deer-parks, rabbit
warrens, romantic foot-paths, ancient oaks, horse-chestnuts, and thorny
ridges, with a variety of sequestered spots for pic-nics and pleasure
parties. This noble park can be reached by a sail of fifteen miles on
the River Thames, which is skirted by Richmond Park for some distance.
There is a grand Observatory for scientific purposes in Greenwich Park,
which is noted all the world over for its correct calculations, and all
the watches and clocks in Great Britain are set by Greenwich time.
[Sidenote: THE WORLD'S FAIR.]
Bushy Park, at Hampton Court, where there is a splendid gallery
of ancient and foreign paintings and sculpture, the property of
the nation, and free to the people, was formerly the residence of
Cardinal Wolsey. This royal palace and park is to London what St.
Cloud is to Paris. The palace stands on the banks of the Thames, and
when completed, in 1526, for the great Cardinal, it contained 282
apartments, and as many beds. The Great Hall is inferior to none in
England, and is ornamented with stained-glass windows, stags' heads,
spears, flags, trophies, figures of men-at-arms, and other medieval
ornaments, and the walls are hung with tapestry, depicting the story of
the Patriarch Abraham's life. The largest grape-vine in the world grows
in the park, and extends over a space of 3,000 feet. This vine was
planted one hundred years ago, and produces, every year, about 2,000
bunches of black, sweet grapes, which are reserved for the Queen's
private table. An attendent, showing the royal vine to me, informed
the writer that it was high treason to steal the grapes, and I have no
doubt that he believed what he said. The Queen has, also, a bed-room
here, which she wisely refrains from sleeping in, as, I have no doubt,
she would catch influenza from the draughts.
But the great curiosity of Hampton Court Park, is the "Maze," an
intricate complication of pathways, that wind in and out, and which
have served as a standing conundrum and riddle from time immemorial,
for the amusement of the Cockneys. Any one who enters this maze without
a guide cannot leave it again, so intricate and puzzling are the
foot-paths, which are overshadowed, embowered, and interlaced with
young trees and umbrageous shrubbery. By fastidious Londoners this maze
is called the "Labyrinth."
[Illustration: THE LABYRINTH.]
One of the most popular places of rural resort in the vicinity of
London, is the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, a suburb of the metropolis,
and about ten miles from the city.
It is no exaggeration to say, that next to St. Peter's, at Rome, this
is the most wonderful structure in the world, and equals in point of
magnificence, some of the creations of the Arabian Nights.
When the great World's Fair of 1851 ended, there was a general desire
among all Englishmen, that this magnificent structure, which had held
the great cosmopolitan show, should not be destroyed. A committee of
some nine gentlemen was formed, by whose direction it was taken to
pieces for the purpose of reconstruction. This committee had purchased
the building, and a company was chartered with a capital of £500,000,
in shares of £5, and so confident were the Londoners of the success of
the new scheme, that the shares were quickly taken up and the operation
of removing the vast building to Sydenham, its present site, was
commenced.
[Sidenote: THE CRYSTAL PALACE.]
The new structure was begun, and the first column raised, on the 5th of
August, 1852; and, immediately after, several gentlemen were despatched
to the principal cities on the Continent for the purpose of bringing
to England casts of the finest pieces of sculpture in existence, and
other specimens of the fine arts. The splendid Park, Winter Garden,
and Conservatories were committed to the management of the late Sir
Joseph Paxton, who invented the architectural part of the Palace of
1851. The arrangements of the various other departments were assigned
to men of eminence and skill, in whose hands the structure grew, until
it quickly attained its present splendor, and the New Crystal Palace
was at length opened to the public on the 10th of June, 1854. Some
idea of the magnitude and extent of the operations carried on in the
fitting up of this enormous house of glass may be gathered from the
fact, that at one time there were no fewer than 6,400 men employed in
carrying out the designs of the directors. The edifice is completely
transparent, being composed entirely, roof and walls, of clear glass,
supported by an iron framework; and it is said that these materials
are more durable than either marble or granite, and, if properly cared
for, will utterly defy the ravages of time. The extreme length of the
Palace, including the wings, is 2,756 feet; which, with the colonnade
leading from the railway-station to the wings, gives a total length
of 3,476 feet, or nearly three-quarters of a mile. The width of the
great central transept is 120 feet; and its height, from the garden
front to the top of the louvre, is 208 feet, or six feet higher than
the Monument on Fish Hill. It consists of a basement floor, above which
rise a magnificent central nave, two side-aisles, two main galleries,
three transepts, and two wings. In order to avoid sameness and monotony
in such an immense surface of glass, pairs of columns and girders
are advanced eight feet into the nave at every seventy-two feet. An
arched roof covers the nave, and the centre transept towers into the
air in fairy-like lightness and brilliancy. There are also recesses
twenty-four feet deep in the garden fronts of all the transepts, which
throw fine shadows, and relieve the continuous surface of the plain
glass walls; and the whole building is otherwise agreeably broken
into parts by the low square towers at the junction of the nave and
transepts, the open galleries toward the garden front, and the long
wings on either side. The building is heated to the genial temperature
of Madeira, by an elaborate system of hot-water pipes, and the supply
of water is drawn from an Artesian well. The Tropical Department,
once a great feature of the Palace, has ceased to exist; having been
destroyed by fire about three years ago.
[Illustration: THE CRYSTAL PALACE.]
There are large and beautiful pleasure grounds all around the Crystal
Palace, and all the great national fetes, concerts, and open air
demonstrations, take place here. Patti, Nillson, and Sims Reeves, sing
here in benefits for charitable associations, and for a shilling, a
person may listen to ballads on Saturday afternoons, at these concerts,
sung by the greatest living English tenor. Then there are acres of
restaurants and dining saloons inside and outside of the Crystal
Palace, and apparatus and cooking utensils are on the premises, whereby
ten thousand people may find dinner, all at one time, and sit down to
tables in five minutes after dinner has been ordered. During the long
summer evenings, promenade concerts are held at the Crystal Palace, and
fireworks are let off in the presence of great crowds, who enjoy the
sports and junketings much as a New York crowd may do on a Fourth of
July night, in the City Hall, or Madison Park.
The contents of the Palace itself are calculated to puzzle the brains
of a philosopher. Everything wonderful, curious, precious, or difficult
to find at any other place, may be found at the Crystal Palace.
Specimens of architecture, sculpture of all ages, tombs, temples,
busts, statues, capitals, hieroglyphs, from Greece, Rome, Egypt, and
Italy, portions and entire courts from the glorious Alhambra, gigantic
relics and ruins from the Palaces of Babylon, Susa, and Nineveh;
fragments of the Christian temples of Italy, the castles and churches
of Germany, the Chateaux of Belgium and France, and the Cathedrals and
Mansions of England, from the earliest ages to the present time, all of
which are arranged in "courts" in the most systematic order.
Beside these there are many Industrial "Courts" containing the most
wonderful and useful inventions of the genius and scholar. Then there
are gigantic models of the tremendous animals who existed before the
flood, with models of huge and hideous reptiles, and saurians, who did
their level best in the same period.
[Sidenote: COST OF GROUNDS AND BUILDING.]
Some sunny Saturdays as many as fifty thousand people pay visits to
the Crystal Palace, and to see and enjoy all these wonders, the
charge is only one shilling, including concerts, music, fireworks, and
flirtations.
The last time I was there it was on the occasion of the Royal Dramatic
Fete, for the benefit of the profession, and fully a hundred thousand
persons were present, including the Prince and Princess of Wales, and
many of the nobility.
The entire cost of grounds and building, with works of art and
curiosities, was seven million dollars. There were 15,000,000 of
bricks, 6,000 tons of iron, 20,000 loads of timber, 300,000 superficial
feet of glass, 1,200 iron columns, one mile and a half of clerstory
windows, and other materials in proportion, used in the construction
of the edifice, and the space of ground enclosed under the transparent
roof is twenty-five acres, being one-fifth greater than the area of the
base of the Great Pyramid.
[Illustration]