CHAPTER XV.

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.

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."

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.

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.