The Express.
London, England, 1861-07-02 00:00:00

.1114111 WATER AT LONDON MOO&

TO D4T *TIMM. Mamas. IL Oa
741414=101-11.4.ira. AL.." Allones, Is.. Us.

LONDON, TUESDAY, JULY t

TO OUR RF.ADIRS,
sPORTINU DITELLIOENCE.

A late edition idr the Express is published every
eveising during this racing season, containing the
results of the day's rates.

THE famous reward offered for the discovery of
a new pleasure has not expired with the life of
the voluptuary who first announced it. Are not
the brightest of earthly guerdons still his who can
make the jaded pulse beat faster, and stimulate
the sated sense with an unexpected thrill 1 Does
not wearied beauty smile her thanks, do not used- '
up men about town applaud into popularity the
man who will, et this languid and exhausted period
of the season, give them something before unseen
to see, and minister the delicious taste of $ half-
improper pleasure ? In this difficult but glorious
art the palm of success must be shared between
the Directors of the Crystal Palace and the Cum
Corrt*,ioxaa of lie: his.riervl Woods and
Forests. The former have, indeed, made a great hit
in the engagement of BLONDIN to turn somersaults
upon a dizzy repo, but the latter succeeds every
year in turning the principal of our metropolitan
parks upside down. He builds Italian gardens in
the water, and plants steam engines in their
midst ; he terns horse rides through fiower-beds,
and constructs carriage drives through lakes. For
all this he has his reward. The eyes of pretty
horsebreakers, and of their fair and innocent
imitators, sparkle when he promises them a
canter over untrodden turf and a pleasant scatter-
ing of affrighted nursemaids and students absent
of mind. He is designated, with more or less of
imprecation, a good fellow by all the high and low
snobbood of London. He has for himself the
charming excitement of doing a little of the
" Friends, Romans, countrymen," style of ora-
tory ; and of declaiming from a bench in
the park to a Sunday audience, delighted
with the condescension of an honourable,
and tickled with platitudes, worn out else-
where, about equal rights and English
manliness. Where he does not please, he at least
astonishes. As the dog-days approach, the whole
metropolis is interested in watching how his pecu-
liar idiosyncrasy will develop itself. But in no-
velty and ingenuity it ever surpasses expectation.
Two years ago the exploit was the building of a
filter for the Serpentine, which--at a cost of we
forget how many thousands—still stands unfinished
and incapable of use. Last year it was the opening
to horsemen of gardens till then reserved sacred to
the enjoyment of pedestrians. A vote was ob-
tained from Parliament to provide a fence for the
ride, but ere it could be put up public indignation'
compelled that the ride itself should be closed and
returfed. This year the ride has been re-opened
in a different situation, but the novelty was
not sufficiently startling for the taste of Mr.
Coweaa and his patrons. He has, therefore,
added to it the formation of a ride or drive,
we know not which may be intended, along the
north bank of the Serpentine in Hyd♦park. As
the existing road left only a space wide Gaoogl►
for a footway between it and the water, he hes
widened this by shooting mud and rubbish to
a breadth of some twenty feet into the lake, and
the land thus " reclaimed " is now being levelled
and gravelled.

Against this last improvement we mart beg to I
repeat the protest which we made against the
experiments on public patience of the two last
years. Hyde•park is unique in European cities; the 1
calm and repose of Kennington Gardens are the
gloryof London, and the hesithof its brain-wearied
denizens ; the Serpentine is the most beautiful
piece of water accessible to thousands of our fel!ow-
creatures, and we cannot afford to have any of
them tampered with. It is, indeed, the peculiar
misfortune of Mr. COWPCII/ that his improvements
are each year more fatally destructive to the pro-
perty under his care. The filters were at least In
a corner, the trodden flower-paths and parched
turf recovered their beauty in a year, but when
shall we hope to see the rubbish shot into the
Serpentine re-excavated 1 The only fault the
lake bad was in being too narrow, and Mr. Cow-
Mt has taken twenty feet off ita width. Its
purity and use to bathers depend on its size, and
Mr. Cow mit has still further contracted it. For

what purpose this has been done we hare
yet to learn. But if the pretence be that
greater breadth was wanted for the footway, we
can only assert without fear of contradiction that
the walk has never yct been found inconseniently
crowded. And if the suggestion shall be that a
new or wider ride or drive was required, we can
but repeat that these luxuries of the rich ought to
be provided at • somewhat lees heavy cost than
the expenditure of public money in injuring the
beauty and utility of one of our few public pro-
perties which contribute to both.
The ar,;unieutii—if assertions deserve that name
—which Mr. Cower• and his friends used last
year will doubtless again be put forward in his
justification. We shall be told again th►t a peti-
tion of 40,000 people to have Kensington Gardens
preserved proves the fallacy of their plea that it
has any seclusion capable of invasion, and that
they are the selfish monopolists who would exclude
their fellow-creatures from sharing their enjoyment.
sorely because they are rich enough to ride. Can
Mr. Cowrie, after • year's meditation, not be
brought to see that the thousands who are inte-
rested in Kensington-Gardens are not all habitually
present in it at every moment, and that it may
chance to be uncrowded though there are crowds
of people who lore to resort at times to its
pleasant shades 1 Or must we gravely tell him