The Sun.
London, England, 1865-01-25 00:00:00

THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

tent to judge had aamnunced that the frozen
Milne was firm, solid, and safe?
would be no tyranny, no intelierence with the,:
berty of the subject, in that. The law which forbids
railway passengers to, aright from a train whilenl
motion, the law whit' h. prevents a publican fro
lowing children of to. nder age to drink at the h 31,.;
and the law which ref gulates the sale of poisons, ai.,`
all interventions in their several degrees between',
personal, right and tb to public interest.
at
tb,ehis
we repeats, is the lir otection of the parks, at this
dangerous period cif the year, left almost altoget'll,
to fire good alai 4km.cellent efforts of the Royal
band
mane Sdeiety `./. 'That society placarded the thatban
of the Serpsntine
the ice was nt, went. than an inch and a half &clic!
on Monday with warnings t
Yet five hundred peo ohs were allowed to skate an,
slide, wantonly, foolis't ly, and wickedly, as if in:C° 110
tempt of the mercies of . Providence. Can this2,ton
way be prevented? T2le waters in Nensw. b„ of
Gardens were similarly th:onged, and the l'veiog
ten persons were for a considerable time hani' at
upon the doctor's fiat- In the Regent's arrnts,
Battersea, and at Han tpstead, there were accident
which in all cases, no putter whether the Poe's n,,,er
only knee deep or, as at Hampstead, floatmg ht
he
depths of slime and mud,, this
thee
this
o,a,
been fatal. would be absurd to make
text of a homily igainst skating. The Wirt is t the
mirable and healthy. If the performers 010,0
necessary precautions it m ay be of benefit to then'
many ways. But so many of our amateurs, besides
olt
risking the thin ice, incur ii,juries by pen to
the very rough and very omooth alternatel to be
most perilous error possibJe. They think that
fearless they must be violent.
either at the ice or at their own and
They look au
cipitate formidable collisions. The) fancy Oa
ntr(1101
can imitate the Dutch travelling roil in a„....llnitieg
park, and hence a large proportion of the 7--yet
which take place. It seems a troisal, ,a117,(,018
seems necessary, to remind young peoPh'ckating,
and intrepid qualities, that, in order to e.njoY:-. Ore,
the must have the ice to skate over—:o%o it
frostupon the water. In the north of Eugri,./.0
common to travel in skates on the gulfs an' vets'
common
and, with a favourable wind, the men thlls,,stha
' iot
neying go faster than ordinary ships. The,:
moreover, a kind of flight, for they only totto'`, ies•
ground in the slightest possible of delicate ',lie tt
h The Frieslander, as a rule, can run across the le
alf the common velocity of a steam-engirt to,
thus Pte
1801 two young women, making 30 miles in ilea
hours, won a handsome prize at a skating, "id
instituted by the good burghers of Gottingenjoc%
as a creditable historian relates, 20 years afte_„,l. eas,
a Lincolnshire man, for a wager of 100 "-", o;
skated a mile within two seconds of three liT`,ll, age,
so that we are by no means anxious to alsr,tros"
this favourite English recreation. But even it6e tbe
facile
practitioners should not be indifferent tityt
dangers they confront. Who needs to be ter longs
men with an irritable state of the blood of,,tefk
should never skate against the wind, or that, i tteo
o f skimming, in the way of bravado, along nest
ice,
he should get away from it by the hinicte
method of locomotion practicable ; but, in IA tlO
all this, tens of thousands need to be told, at.ll-nve'
over and over again, and that without ntaePoi.'pef:
rent effect, that they should never, howel- Ore"
suaded, hazard themselves upon ice less thaa, 000
inches thick. We fancy we hear the ba.,l",,des'
crying " Bogey !" Let us ask them a simP„e,ittil)
tion—ls all the skating sport of the season
single human life ? That poor boy who, at ~`"fro°
endeavoured to save his brother, and came 11, rnf
an abyss of ooze and weed, with a mouthfa',:ibt be
wretched child's hair between his teeth, the reciv
expected to warn, in one way or another,
less fools who fling fruit and money ou the °114.0- title
ice, and cruelly and abominably lure there *of the
risk of their lives. Is it conceivable that all,re
tha
fellows who behaved thus on Monday last 18',.-eiter
parents of families ? They utterly misaPl3-000"
let us tell them, the uses of the metropolita.,in
Tlie parks are no more designed for the satl."1,;;OI
of their inane tastes than they are for the
ruffians who 101 l upon their lawns in sunault,sbiol
unnoticed by constables, or for the waterfolP9to
the
enjoy better protection than is vouchsafed 501
public. Evelyn and Pepys both record hell/ tbl4
before Christmas in St. James's made then,l
pleasantly of a Dutch winter with its '''`ettels
" which is a very pretty art," but neither ~atle
" the sliding rabble" which t, pretended to be
up of gay flatterers, and incited the boys an fog°
to risk the breaking of 'their necks on the we ilfe
pool." Whenever we have a frost, havvevr7,,lbia!
pestered with this nuisance, the abatement
would be a public benefit.