The Sun.
London, England, 1864-11-15 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNAL S.

TIM ES.—A more handsome proposal has seldom.
if ever, been made than that which Lord Spencer
explained last Friday to a meeting of the residents
of Wimbledon. As Lord of the Manor, he proposes,
if the consent of the copyholders and the sanction
of Parliament be obtained, to convert all the im-

portant part of Wimbledon Common into a public
park. Such an offer amounts to nothing less than
to make the public a present of a large and invalu-
able tract of ground. Wimbledon is fast becoming
nearly es much a suburb of London as Clapham or
Hampstead, and land is becoming proportionately
valuable for building purposes. The swarm of houses
which spreads from the metropolis in all directions
wherever it can obtain an opening has already set-
tled around the Common, and is but waiting its
opportunity to occupy it. In such circumstances no
one could fairly have expected that those who had
in their hands the disposal of the Common should,
except in obedience to a special law, refuse the
great pecuniary advantage thus afforded them. As
Lord Spencer stated on Friday, there can be no
question that he and the copy holders, if they acted
in concert, would be the only persons who would
have any voice in its disposal. No doubt, therefore,
Lord Spencer might, if he had so chosen, have carved
the whole Common into building plots, to his own
great advantage, but the great loss of the public.
More could not possibly have been expected than
that a moderate portion should be kept free from

brick and mortar, for the health and the ornament

he new neighbourhood. With extraordinary

liberality, however, Lord Spencer completely for-
gets his private interests, and regards solely the
benefit of the public. e offers to abandon alto■
gether the prospect of deriving any personal profit
from the Common and to dedicate it for ever as a
park to the nee of the public. So far as can be
judged at present the copyholders second these ge-
nerous intentions, but Parliament will, of course,

have nothing left to it but to accept with fitting
gratitude and honour such a public-spirited offer.
The fact of this surrender in itself would be suf-
ficient to deserve the heartiest acknowledgments,

but the value of the gift is enhanced in the only
way that is possible—by the manner in which it is
conveyed. Though the decision of the matter, as
we have said, rests with himself and the copy-
holders, subject to the sanction of Parliament, Lord
Spencer takes the residents of Wimbledon into his
councils, and offers to be guided in a measure by
their opinions and wishes. Not contented with
making the public a splendid gift, he deprives him-
self to some extent of the privilege of a donor, and
allows us in some way to determine the method of
his generosity. It would be hard, however, to ima-
gine a more liberal, or apparently a more satisfac-
tory, scheme than that which he has himself cone
ceived. He proposes to enclose with a light iron
railing the portion of the Common which lies be.
tween the village of Wimbledon and the Kingston.
road. This inclosure would be thoroughly drained,
openings would be left at sufficient intervals to offer
ready access from all points, the present roads
would be improved, new roads would be made,
lodges built, and the ground would be generally
ornamented and improved. All this would, of
course, involve a considerable expense, and there
are Common rights which would have to bs com-
pensated. This expense he proposes to meet by the
sale of outlying portions of the Common. These
portions are of little public use, but they are, no
doubt, as valuable for houses as any other parts,
and it is not supposed that it will be necessary to
sell them all. The whole expense therefore of the
formation of the park will be provided for from the
Common itself, and the public will not have to con.
tribute anything to so great a boon, When the
park is formed Lord Spencer proposes to take upon
himself and his successors the whole current charges
of management and repairs, retaining for this pur-
pose the exclusive right of pasturage. He would
also be the superintendent, with the title of Protec-
tor, and, in conjunction with a Governmer.t official,
he would have the entire control of the park. By
this authority bye laws would be framed for the
management ; and it would be understood that, by
the consent of the Protector and the Government
official, associations of a national character should
be allowed to hold meetings there, This joint con-
trol of an officer of Government he modestly pro-
-poses as a proper check to protect the public from
the consequences of any whim or caprice on the
part of himself or his successors. By this scheme
the public would have secured to them for ever a
beautiful park of not less than 700 acres, or
not very far from the extent of Hyde Park and
Kensington Gardens together—a park which
has been found by experience to be admirably
adapted for the purposes of such national associa-
tions as Lord Spencer has in view, and which at all
times would offer to the inhabitants of London the
most healthy and picturesque place of recreation.
We do not ace how a more thoughtful or more liberal
' scheme could have],been proposed. In order, how-
, ever, to estimate properly the boon which is thus
offered to us, it is necessary to remember from how
great a difficulty and even danger it may be the
means of extricating us, Our readers will remems
ber the sharp passage of arms which took place in
the House of Commons last session on the question
of providing open spaces around the metropolis. In
the excitement which preceded the great Danish
debate it assumed the rank of a little party skirmish,
and the Government were defeated by a resolution
which declared it to be their duty to provide for the
preservation of these open spaces. At the same
time it was felt that the resolution laid on them a
task of extreme difficulty and vast expense. The
importance of the object, indeed, was far beyond
that of any mere party struggle. It is absolutely
essential for the health of the population of London,
if not for the purity of the air itself, that this vast
living organisation of brick and mortar should not
spread its petrifying power over every green field
that surrounds us. We must have within reasonable
reach of us opportunities for exercising that mystea
rious commerce which not our body alone, but every
faculty of our nature, seems to carry on with nature.
For great numbers in this city it is hard enough to
obtain these opportunities now, but it promised
soon to become harder still. London is extending
in every direction as ft is over Wimbledon, and it
seemed as if nothing but special legislation could
prevent every common and green from being over•
spread with villas and cottages. No one ever
dreamt that the proprietors of these open spaces,
daily becoming more and more valuable, would
spontaneously consult the public welfare instead of
their private interests, and would willingly sacrifice
claims which, without just complaint, they might
have firmly maintained and hardly sold. But what
no one could have dreamt of Lord Spencer has done.
While we are deliberating how partly to purchase
and partly to claim a necessity, he makes us a pre-
sent of it; and while we are considering how to
adjust the sacrifices which he must make for our
benefit and we for his interests, he cuts the knot by
making all the sacrifices himself, and leaving us
none which we can take upon ourselves. We need
hardly add that of all the open spaces near London
which it was important to preserve Wimbledon is,
perhaps, the most important.
POST.—Ere the close of the present week we
shall learn the result of the Presidential election in
America, and shall know definitively to whom the
government of the Northern Republic is entrusted
for the next four years. On Tuesday last those
States which, either willingly or under coercion,
acknowledge the authority of the established Go-
vernment chose the delegates who constitute the
electoral college, and as the latter are simply the
mouth-pieces of those who appoint them, as soon
as the constituent members of the college are known
the result of the election is no longer a matter of
doubt. That we are impatient on this side of the
Atlantic to know whether the Republican or the
Detnocratic candidate is the victor, it would be
affectation to deny, though, so far as regards that
in which we alone feel an interest, namely, the war,
it would be difficult, if not impossible, to affirm
which of the rival factions would soonest bring it
to a conclusion. It is not, however, in respect to
its immediate result that the election of the Federal
President is invested with its chief interest or its
principal importance. Under a Lincoln or a
M'Clellan the Republic might possibly hurry to-
wards ruin with equally rapid strides, but the index
which the mode in which that election has been
conducted furnishes of the changes which a very
brief period has sufficed to work in American insti-
tutions cannot fail to rivet universal attention. The
occasions have been, unfortunately, but too fre-
quent on which we have been called upon to note
the apparent indifference with which American
citizens have permitted a responsible Government
to usurp those unlimited powers whose exercise is
witnessed alone under a pure despotism, but it is
only now that we are made fully aware of the im-
mensity of the evil which has been wrought by
that illeadvised connivance at the misdeeds of the
Administration which was begotten by an over•
whelming desire to re-establish the Union. Each
fresh violation of the constitution was readily
excused under the plea of military necessity,
until at last the constitution for whose preservation
so much blood has been spilt has ceased to exist.
The population of the Northern States permitted
their elective magistrate to assume supreme power.
in the hopes of seeing it employed in subjugating
their foes. They now find, however, that the only
practical use to which it has been applied is the
annihilation of their political liberties. The events
of the past few weeks have notoriously created a
strong revulsion of feeling in favour of MlCiellan,
but it is no less notorious that the issue of the pend-
ing election was not influenced thereby in the
slightest degree. The framers of the American cone
stitution took special care to deprive the President
of the right of interference in the election of his