The Express.
London, England, 1866-06-11 00:00:00

VICTORIA PARK AND THE GAS

0014PANIES.

Victoria-park is less known to fashionable London
than the Ponte Vecchio, or the Nevskoi Pe
tive. That it exists, and is situate somewhere
beyond the confines of the City ; that it was de-
signed for the enjoyment of the toiling thousands
to whom in their turn Hyde-park, the Green-park,
and St. James's are little more than names ; that it
has fulfilled its mission creditably ; and is occa-
sionally used for open air meetings, sums up
many a well-informed gentleman's knowledge con-
cerning it. Recent events, however, have deve-
loped the latent public interest in this beautiful
pleasure ground ; exploring parties composed of
members of both houses have organised pilgrimages
to its furthest confines ; it has become a topic at the
clubs—open barouches full of scientific members
having left the Athenaeum to examine it the other
day, while the "Arta" has signed an influential peti-
tion against its destruction, and an East-end rector
has deliberately affirmed before a committee of the
House of Commons that the existence of this
park has done more good to the moral welfare
of the people than all the clergymen and churches
in the district. But the interest these facts
show has long been a vivid reality in the densely
populated thoroughfares near which Victoria-park
lies. Last Whit-Monday 180,000 men, women, and
children spent their holiday there, and on every
Saturday and Sunday throughout the year the vast
place teams with active, joyous life. For the word
park " gives but a cold and formal notion of this
national playground. Apart from the luxuriant
foliage—the profusion of radiant colour from the
trimly kept parterres—the groves and thickets of
healthy and vigorous shrubs—the romantic leafy
alcoves, and the shady water-skirted paths—in all
of which Victoria-park excels her more fashionable
sisters—no pains have been spared to foster a
love of athletic exercise among its fre-
quenters. An open-air gymnasium, with bars
and lofty swings and pulleys, greets the
visitor on entrance. Here hundreds of men

and boys may be seen on summer evenings
practising every variety of gymnastic sport. Pass-
ing through the spacious flower garden to the right,
a garden full of beauty now, but which will be in
its real glory a few weeks hence, and a shrubbery
is gained at the end of which is a lake studded with
verdant islands from which blossom-laden trees
bend down. Here are merry parties of boating
• • ple ; and here, too, in certain hours, the spring-
and for plunging bathers is in active use. A few
more turns to and fro the pleasant puzzling paths,
which are so shut in by flowers and trees that the
uninformed stranger is almost certainly bewildered
into losing his way, and a fine open burst of coon-
' try is reached. In the midst of this stands the
handsomest drinking fountain in London. This
beautiful structure was designed by Mr. Darbishire
and presented to the people by Miss Burdett
Coutta, and is indeed a series of fountains, for its
ornate temple-dome covers many gracefully sculp-
tured groups from each of which water constantly
flows. Beyond this again is the archery ground,
where vast crowds were on Saturday plying bow and
arrow with no mean skill ; and still further to the
east, and hidden by another mass of foliage, is the
cricket field. Its size and capabilities may be esti-
mated by the fact that nearly a hundred different
Sarties were playing on it at the same time on
aturday afternoon. There were important matches,
with scorers' tents, and formal umpires giving their
award ; trivial "scratch " games, in which a little
pile of players' coats and hats stood for the wickets ;
smart flannel uniforms and flags bearing the dif-
ferent club cyphers ; coats and trowsers
which showed their wearers to have come
direct from the workshop to the ground,
and round and about all a goodly show of women
and children squatted on the grass, looking after
the regiment of volunteers at drill in another
corner, or encouraging their lieges, and waving
I handkerchiefs, and cheering every skilful ball, or
more than ordinarily successful hit. The vast place
I was full, and over and above the leading
amusements named, such minor diversions
as skipping, battle-door and shuttlecock,
pony riding, ball, leapfrog, decorous flirtation, and
the wheeling of perambulators, flourished on all
sides. Such is the scene to be witnessed upon any
holiday afternoon, and such are the enjoyments
which these park frequenters are jealously anxious
to preserve.
The proposition to erect gasworks at the eastern
extremity of Victoria-park, recently withdrawn out
of deference to the energetic expressions of public
opinion against it, has been followed by a scheme
more comprehensively disastrous. If the indigna-
tion vented un the Imperial Gas Company was
merited, existing proposals call for stronger denun-
ciation still. An inspection of the ground and
a consideration of its surroundings, make it im-
possible to doubt that the erection of gasworks on
a far larger scale than that contemplated by the
company whose bill was withdrawn, would seriously
injure this park. Even at the present time it is
curious to trace the gradual contamination of the
air as the entrance nearest London is left,
and what ought to be the purer atmosphere of
the suburbs is gained. This is so surprising that
the stranger is apt to doubt the evidence of his
senses. For while the flowers and trees beginning
within a few yards of the crowded Old Ford and
Bethnal Green-road, are bright and vigorous, and
the air around is balm) and refreshing, those at
the opposite end where the dwellings are few, and
where bright meadows and the river Lea are with-
in a few stones-throw, seem stunted and to have
marks of blight, while flower growing is not at-
tempted or is a failure, and the atmosphere is an
unwholesome compound of creosote, naphtha, and
tar. More than fifty tall chimneys can be counted
from the little canal bridge outside the park, each
of which belches forth its quota of foul smell. For
one of the grievances most bitterly complained of,
is the habitual defiance of the Smoke Act by the
factories which abound in this district, and
in which every description of odorous manufacture
is carried on. The debateable land upon which
the amalgamated companies wish to erect their
works lies low, is to the east of the park, and is
bounded by the canal and the river Lea. Situa-
tion is an all-important consideration here, for, as a
park-keeper said in our hearing, " the wind is so '
often in the east that you could not reckon on
more than five days in the year when the gas
smoke would not blow this way." In the winter
it is frequently under water, but now is a marshy,
meadow} tract of ground, dotted with stunted
trees, whose leaves only grow to a certain height,
I and which in every case are crowned with bare
distorted boughs, weird, fantastic, and eerie-look-
ing. it is plausibly argued that as the park is on
a level with the tops of these trees nothing short
of the most sedulous attention keeps that part of
its foliage alive, and that the smoke of the gas-
works it is wished to erect would make what is
already difficult impossible. Against this, the pro-
moters of the scheme advance the advantages to be
gained from the draining of the meadows, and
faithfully promise to consume their own smoke.
Some injudicious commercial advocates go so far as
to point to the stenches already prevalent as a rea-
-1 son for adding to their number with impunity ;
I and some take the untenable ground that the dia-
-1 tance from the park is such that injury to it is
impossible. But the people interested in the
preservation of the latter, so far as we have been able
to test their feeling from personal inquiry and obser-
vation, laugh at the promises, and pointing to the
broad black clouds of factory smoke lowering ove-:-
head, aakbitterly who is to make agreat company keep
its word. The distance theory was amusingly illus-
trated on Saturday, when it was demonstrated on
the ground to the leading officers of the company,
and by the map put forth by them, that the distance
from the park to the gasworks' field would be only
some four hundred yards.
But a visit to the place itself is, M a case of this
nature, the only true means of gauging the financial
arguments put forth, or of estimating the 'value of
scientific opinion. If the instincts of the thousands
whose playground it is be not marvellously at fault,
parliamentary sanction for the erection of these
works would be the death knell of their
park. The unanimity of this feeling was
shown by the lowering looks cast upon
the investigators, supposed to be emissaries ci the