East London . grounds. In all of them a band of music plays onstated evenings. This restoration of the garden to the people is a great fea-ture of modern attempts at civilization; it seems terrible thatthere should be no place anywhere for children to play ex-cept the streets, or for the old people to sit except in thepublic house. London is now dotted with parks, chieflysmall and covered with gardens. Nearly all the church-yards have been converted into gardens; the headstones areranged along the walls; they might just as well be takenaway; one or two altar tombs are left. The rest of thegrou
East London . grounds. In all of them a band of music plays onstated evenings. This restoration of the garden to the people is a great fea-ture of modern attempts at civilization; it seems terrible thatthere should be no place anywhere for children to play ex-cept the streets, or for the old people to sit except in thepublic house. London is now dotted with parks, chieflysmall and covered with gardens. Nearly all the church-yards have been converted into gardens; the headstones areranged along the walls; they might just as well be takenaway; one or two altar tombs are left. The rest of theground is planted with flowering shrubs—lilac, laburnum,ribes, the Pyrus Japonica, and the like; the walks are as-phalted, and seats are provided. Nearly all the year roundone may see the old people walking about the paths or sittingin the sun; part of the ground is given to the children. It isdifficult, indeed, to exaggerate the boon conferred upon acrowded city by these breathing-places, w^here one can be 31i. On Margate Sands. ON SPORTS AND PASTIMES 307 quiet. The summer amusements of the people, you will ob-serve, are not all made up of noisy crowds and musical trip-pers; add the summer evening walk in the park and, all theyear round, the rest in the garden that is a disused burial-ground. For the children there is the day in the country. Everysummer day long caravans of wagons filled with children,singing and shouting as they go, drive along the roads tothe nearest country place, or excursion trains crammed withchildren are carried off to the nearest seaside places. Theyrun about on the seashore, they bathe, they sit down to atea of cake and buns, and they are taken home at night tiredout but singing and shouting to the end. This summer dayout is the one great holiday for the children; they schemeto get put on the lists of more than one excursion; they lookforward to it; they count upon it. Every year vigorous ap-peals are made in the papers for help to send the childrenaway
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