The Sun.
London, England, 1841-07-03 00:00:00

THE NEW PARKS.

(From the Medical Gazette.)
In the brief and disturbed session of Parliament which
has. just been abruptly brought to a close, no measure
was. passed that is likely to prove more beneficial than
that for the formation of a park in the eastern district of
London ; for it is sincerely and confidently to be hoped
that the benefit may not terminate in this single improve-
ment, but may be only the first-fruits of the more strict
attention which late years have found legislators ready
to pay to those things, which, though they. may have
little or no immediate influence on the existing conflict
of parties and of general political principles, are yet of
the highest importance to the social condition and
health of the lower orders, and to the well-being of
the community.
It has been boasted that, considering its size, London
is better ventilated and drained than any other city in
the world ; and in its ordinary meaning the boast is a
very true one. For considering that the difficulties of
cleansing the earth and air of cities increase in a direct
proportion to their size, it
,is indeed marvellous, and
worthy of boast, that they should have been in any fair
measure overcome in London. But it should not be for-
gotten, that just in proportion to the size is the increase
of the necessities for purification ; for it is only in huge
cities, like our own, that a great majority of the inhabi-
tants are compelled to be all day exposed to the noxious
influences of accumulated impurities. In smaller places
_ _

the evils of the homes, even -of the poorest, may com-
monly be in a few minutes escaped from ; and without
trouble a poor man may obtain at least as much of the
advantages of open air and exercise as in London are
obtained by the inhabitants of the more central squares.
But the mechanic of the metropolis can do nothing of
this kind : he himself, when his day's work is over, is

too tired to walk three or four miles-to the nearest open
public ground ; and for his children, the only place in
which they can be allowed to stroll is the nearest alley
that is not so great a thoroughfare as to be dangerous.
In the drainage of London there is comparatively little
room for improvement ; at least the general plan and
management of it is excellent ; its defects are only
local, and depending chiefly on th negligence of the in-
habitants of certain districts. But for a supply of fresh
air, what we require is, that in every district the inhabi-
tants should be within half a mile of some large open
place, into which the children of the lower classes might
be permitted to resort with safety. And this can only
be attained by increasing the number either of squares
and places, or of parks on the plan of Victoria Park, and
increasing them in even a greater ratio than the popula-

tion is augmented.
The advantages of parks and open spaces are by no
means confined to their affording facilities for exercise
and recreation ; they have a more constant and wide-
spreading influence upon the purificatiOn of the whole
slowly-changing volumes of air. There are hundreds
of places in this metropolis into which the wind never
finds admission, in which the air is never perceptibly
moved, and in which the only change it undergoes is by
the gradual mixing of its impure gases with those of
adjacent spaces, and of the upper strata of the atmo-
sphere. Nay, even among the wider streets, there are
many through which a free current is very rarely blown;
and the Londoners, or at least the majority of them,
shrink befbre a breeze that one from the provinces or
the coast would hardly notice. It is probable, therefore,
that by far the greater proportion of the change of the
air which is effected in the metropolis is the result of
the mixture of the gases composing it. But how slow a
process this is, one may easily judge by the perceptible (we
had almost said the palpable) difference between the air
of an alley and that of the wide street or other space into
which it opens. A part of the gases generated on the
ground and near it are, indeed, by the greater heat
there, soon carried to some distance above it • but that
which is thus disposed of is but a small part of what is
rendered impure ; nor are the heavy and most noxious
of the gases thus most rapidly carried off. Indeed, it is
probable that by this process the change of air is, as far
as it concerns the health of those who breathe it, and
who constantly render it more and more impure, almost
unimportant. Themnly effectual natural process for its
purification, in the absence of the wind, is the gradual
mixture of the gases, in accordance with Dalton's law
that the interspaces of one are as vacua to the particles
of another.
In those quarters of the town in which squares are
tolerably numerous, or in which the close-set houses of
the poor are intersected by the wide streets inhabited
by the rich, there is probably already provided the best
means of rapid ventilation of which they are capable—
at least in the present condition of things, where build-
ing land is more valuable than gold mines. But in other
quarters, not now containing the residences of the rich,
and therefore (with an utter disregard of health in the
anxiety after wealth) close packed with manufactories,
warehouses, and stores, the interspaces between which
are Oa by the houses of the poor ; in these, since a
number of smaller open spaces cannot be afforded, some
very extensive one, as near as it can possibly be made,
is absolutely necessary. Parks, or other similar places,
therefore, should be established in every district not
already possessing squares or wide streets ; nor should
any part be closely covered with buildings for an extent
I .of two square mites, without some such provision for the

purity of its air.
In proof of a common error, we may observe, that
while much is said of the necessity of establishing large
parks all round London, very little is said against the
scheme of building over the largest open space in its
very centre. A plan, it is well known, is in agitation,
and, unless some urgent representation of its evils be
made, will certainly be adopted, of covering nearly the
whole of Lincoln's Inn-fields with new Courts of Law.
The sole advantage anticipated from the plan is that so-
licitors Will be able more conveniently to attend to the
progress of their cases ; but 'surely this is quite an in-
sufficient reason for the probable infliction of unhealthi-
ness on a large surrounding district, already almost as
densely inhabited as any other in the metropolis.