SUNDAY IN A PEOPLE'S GARDEN.
I have often thought that an interesting series of articles might be
written on the subject of "London out of Church," dealing with the
manners and customs of those people who patronize no sort of religious
establishment on the Sunday. I have seen pretty well all the typical
phases of religious London and London irreligious; but these would
rather be characterized as non-religious than as irreligious folks. They
do not belong to any of the varied forms of faith; in fact faith is from
their life a thing apart. It is in this negative way that they are
interesting. Sunday is with them only a regularly recurring Bank
Holiday. It would be interesting to know what they do with it. A special
difficulty, however, exists for me in any such inquiry, resulting from
the fact that, in my capacity of clerical casual, I am pretty generally
engaged on the Sunday; and when I am not, my Day of Rest is too valuable
to be devoted to any of the manifold forms of metropolitan
Sabbath-breaking. I have a great idea that parsons ought to be
frequently preached at; and so I generally go to some church or chapel
when out of harness myself; and if "hearing sermons" constitute the
proper carrying out of the things promised and vowed on my behalf at
baptism I must have undergone as complete a course of Christian
discipline as any man in Christendom, for I have been preached at by
everybody from Roman Catholics down to Walworth Jumpers and Plumstead
Peculiars!
But impressed with anxiety to know about the doings of the
non-Church-goers, I have for a long time cast sheep's eyes at the Sunday
League, and more than once definitely promised to join one of their
Sunday outings; but I am strongly of Tom Hood's opinion that--
The man who's fond precociously of stirring
Must be a _spoon_.
The Sunday League commence their excursions at untimely hours; and it is
a cardinal point in my creed that Sunday ought to be a Day of Rest, at
all events in the matter of breakfast in bed. I missed the excursion to
Shakspeare's House in this way, and the paper on the Bard of Avon, full
of the genius loci, must have been as edifying as a sermon. So, too, on
a recent Sunday, when the Sunday League on their way to Southend got
mixed up with the Volunteer Artillery going to Shoebury, I was again
found wanting. But still the old penchant remained, and Sunday was my
last free one for a long time. How could I utilize it? I had it; I would
go to the People's Garden at Willesden. I had heard that certain very
mild forms of Sabbath breaking prevailed there. I would go and see for
myself.
I had been at the People's Garden twice before; once on the occasion of
a spiritualistic picnic, and once, more recently, at a workmen's flower
show; and felt considerable interest in the place, especially as the
People had been polite enough to send me a season ticket, so that I was
one of the People myself.
This People's Garden was not exactly a Paradise yet, though it is in a
fair way of becoming one. It is a spot of some fifty acres reclaimed
from the scrubbiest part of Wormwood Scrubbs, and made the focus of a
club of working men, of whom I am very proud indeed to be one. Indeed, I
do not see why throughout the remainder of this article I should not use
the first person plural. I will. Well, then, we secured this spot, and
we have got in the first place one of the finest--I believe the
finest--dancing platforms in England, for we as a community are
Terpsichorean, though I, as an individual, am not. I felt it necessary
to give up dancing when my weight turned the balance at fourteen stone
odd. Then we can give our friends refreshments from a bottle of
champagne down to tea and cresses. We have all sorts of clubs, dramatic
and otherwise, and rather plume ourselves on having put up our
proscenium ourselves, that is with our own hands and hammers and nails.
There is the great advantage of being a Working Man or one of the
People. If you had been with me that Sunday you would have seen a glow
of conscious pride suffusing my countenance as I read the bills of our
last amateur performance, consisting of the "Waterman" and "Ici on parle
Français," played on the boards which I, in my corporate capacity, had
planed, and sawn, and nailed. My route last Sunday lay across the crisp
sward of the Scrubbs; and it was quite a pleasure to be able to walk
there without danger of falling pierced by the bullet of some erratic
volunteer; for there are three butts on Wormwood Scrubbs, which I
examined with minuteness on Sunday, and was exercised to see by marks on
the brickwork how very wide of the target a volunteer's shot can go. I
wonder there is not a wholesale slaughter of cattle in the neighbouring
fields. The garden lies on the other side of the Great Western Railway,
across which I had to trespass in order to get to it. But the man in
charge regarded me with indulgence, for was I not a working man and a
"mate?" The portion of the garden abutting on the rail is still
unreclaimed prairie. The working men have begun at the top of the hill,
and are working downwards.
There is a good-sized refreshment-room at the entrance, with all the
paraphernalia of secretary's office, &c.; and this large room, which is
exceedingly useful in wet weather, opens right on to the
dancing-platform, in the centre of which is a pretty kiosk for the band.
We have no gas; but tasty paraffin lamps at frequent intervals give
sufficient light, and, at all events, do not smell _worse_ than modern
metropolitan gas. There is a large tent standing en permanence during
the summer for flower shows, and terrace after terrace of croquet lawns,
all of which it will, I fear, shock some Sabbatarian persons to learn
were occupied on that Sunday afternoon, and the balls kept clicking like
the week-day shots of the erratic riflemen on the Scrubbs. I had a young
lady with me who was considerably severe on the way in which we workmen
male and female, handled our mallets. There was, I confess, something to
be desired in the way of position; and one group of German artisans in
the corner lawn made more noise than was necessary, howling and uttering
all sorts of guttural interjections, as though they were playing polo at
least, or taking part in a bull-fight, instead of in croquet--beloved of
curates.
And then the flowers. We are making the desert blossom like the rose. It
is really marvellous to see what has been done in so short a time. We
might have been a society of market gardeners. We don't get so many
flowers along the walk of life, we working men; so that we want to see a
bit of green sward and a flower or two on Sundays. There is a capital
gymnasium, and our observation of the young men who disport themselves
there would lead an uninitiated observer to form the opinion that the
normal condition of humanity was upside down. The way one youthful
workman hung by his legs on the trapeze was positively Darwinian to
behold. Swings attracted the attention of the ladies; and I regret to
say that the particular young lady I escorted--who was of the mature age
of twelve--passed most of the afternoon in a state of oscillation, and
was continually adjuring me to push her.
An interesting addition to the gardens--our gardens--since I was last
there, consisted of a cage of meditative monkeys, four in number, who
were stationed so near the gymnasium as inevitably to suggest the
Darwinian parallel. They had their gymnasium too, and swung gaily on
their tree-trunks at such times as they were not engaged in eating or
entomological researches. I could not help thinking what a deprivation
it was to the gymnasts that, in course of evolution, we have lost our
tails. They would have been so convenient on the horizontal bar, where
that persevering young workman was still engaged in the pursuit of
apoplexy by hanging head downwards. Soon after we got there an excellent
band commenced playing, not in the kiosk, lest we should be beguiled
into dancing. The first piece was a slow movement, which could scarcely
have been objected to by any Sabbatarian, unless he was so
uncompromising as to think all trumpets wrong. The second was the
glorious march from "Athalie;" and then--my blood runs cold as I write
it--a sort of pot pourri, in the midst of which came the "Dutchman's
Little Wee Dog," considerably disguised in the way of accompaniment and
variation, I own, but the "Little Wee Dog" beyond a doubt. Then I
understood why the band was not in the kiosk; for, fourteen stone though
I be, I felt all my toes twiddling inside my boots at that time as
wickedly as though it had been Monday morning. There were fourteen or
fifteen loud brass instruments, with a side and bass drum and cymbals.
All these were playing the "Little Wee Dog" to their brazen hearts'
content, and only one gentleman on a feeble piccolo-flute trying to
choke their impiety by tootling out a variation, just as the stringed
instruments in the glorious "Reformation Symphony" of Mendelssohn try in
vain to drown with their sensuous Roman airs the massive chords of the
old Lutheran chorale--"Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott." I really could
not bear it any longer, and was rising to go when they stopped; and as
the gentleman who played the circular bass got outside his portentous
instrument, I found he had a little wee dog of his own who retired into
the bell of the big trumpet when his master laid it on the grass.
Perhaps it was in honour of this minute animal the air was selected.
However, I could not lend myself to such proceedings; so I bribed my
youthful charge with a twopenny bottle of frothless ginger beer to come
out of her swing and return to the regions of orthodoxy. The Teutonic
gentlemen were still hooting and yelling as we crossed the corner of
their croquet lawn, until I expected to see them attack one another
with the mallets and use the balls for missile warfare; but it was only
their peculiar way of enjoying themselves.
My little friend described the action of our working men in the croquet
lawn as "spooning," and also drew my attention to the fact that two
lovers were doing the same on a seat, in the approved fashion prevalent
among us workmen, with the manly arm around the taper waist coram
publico. This arrangement is quite a necessity with us. We should often
like to forego it, especially when little boys make rude remarks about
us in the street; but it is expected of us, and we submit.
The sun was beginning to sink grandly over that magnificent panorama of
country visible from Old Oak Common as we passed down the hill and again
violated the bye-laws of the Great Western Railway Company. The spires
of the West End churches were bathed in the soft glow of departing day;
and in the distance the Crystal Palace glittered like a fairy bower. We
got back after making a little détour on account of some gentlemen who
were bathing in a very Paradisiacal way indeed--we actually got back in
time to go to church like good Christians; and I do not think either of
us felt much the worse for the hours we had spent in the People's
Garden--save and except the wicked Little Wee Dog!