The Sun.
London, England, 1842-09-16 00:00:00

PUBLIC WALKS AND GARDENS.
(From the Report on the Sanitary Condition of the
Labouring Population of Great Britain.)
Whilst separation rather than aggregation,
more especially for families, is the course of po-
licy suggested by experience for the places of
residence of the working-classes, accommodation
is called for fi.om every part of the country for
public walks or places of recreation.
Mr. Joseph Strutt, of Derby has presented to
that town a public garden of eleven acres, which
has been so laid out by Mr. Loudon as to give the
advantage of a walk of two miles, and the in-
terest afforded by an arboretum, displaying the
specimens of 1,000 shrubs and plants. The plan
of laying out this public ground so as to make
the most of the space, appears to be one deserv-
ing of peculiar attention; and I have appended
to this report a copy with which I have been fa-
voured. lam informed that his Grace the Duke
of Norfolk has expressed an intention, as soon
as some leases are out, to bestow fifty acres for
the use of Sheffield as a public garden.

Much evidence might be adduced from the
experience of the effects of the parks and other
places of public resort in the metropolis, to prove
the importance of such provision tbr recreation,
not less for the pleasure they afford in them-
selves, than for rivalry to pleasures that are ex-
pensive, demoralising, and injurious to the
health. A benevolent gentleman near Cam-
bridge, who wished to arrest the debauchery
and demoralization promoted by a fair, and, if
possible, to put an -end to the fair itself, insti-
tuted on the days when it was held, and at a
distance from it, a grand ploughing-match, at
which all persons of respectability were invited
to attend. This brought from the fair all the
young men whom it was desired to lead from it
to a regulated and a rational and beneficial en-
tertainment, and thus, without force, and at a very
trivial expense, the lair was suppressed by the
quiet mode mode of drawing away its profit.
On the holiday given at Manchester in cele-
bration of her Majesty's marriage, extensive ar-
rangements were made for holding a Chartist
meeting, and for getting up what was called a
demonstration of the working classes, which
greatly alarmed the municipal Magistrates. Sir
Charles Shaw. the Chief Commissioner of Police,
induced the Mayor to get the Botanical Gardens,
Zoological Gardens, and Museum of that town,
and other institutions, thrown open to the work-
ing classes at the hour they were urgently in-
vited to attend the Chartist meeting. The Mayor
undertook to be personally answerable for any
damage that occurred front throwing open the
gardens and institutions to the classes who had
never before entered them. The effect was that
not more than 200 or 300 people attended the
political meeting, which entirely failed, and
scarcely five shillings worth of damage was done
in the gardens or in the public institutions by
the workpeople, who were highly pleased. A
further effect produced was, that the charges be•
fore the police of drunkenness and riot were on
that day less than the average of cases on ordi-
nary days.
But want of open spaces for recreation is not
confined to the town population. In the rural
districts the children and young persons of the
villages have frequently no other places for re-
creation than the (lusty road before their houses,
or the narrow and dirty lanes, and accidents fre-
quently take place from the playing of children
on the public highways. If they go into the
fields they are trespassers, and injure the farmer.
The want of proper spaces as play-grounds for
children is detrimental to the morals as well as
to the health in the towns, and it probably is so
generally. The very scanty spaces which the
children, both of the middle and the lower'
classes, the ill as well as the respectably edu-
cated, can obtain, force all into one company to
the detriment of the better children, for it is the
rude and boisterous who obtain pred9tninance.
In the course of some investigations which I had
occasion to make into the causes of juvenile de-
linquency, there appeared several cases of Cnil-
dren of honest and industrious parents, who
had been entrapped by boys of bad character;
I inquired how the more respectable chil-
dren became acquainted with the depraved;
when it was shown that in the present state of
many crowded neighbourhoods all the children
of a court or of a street were forced to play, if
they had any play whatsoever, on such scraps of
ground as they could get, and all were brought
into acquaintanceship, and the range of influence
of the depraved was extended. The condition
of the children in large districts where there are
no squares, no gardens attached to the houses,
and no play-grounds even to their day-schools,
and where they are of a condition in life to be
withheld from playing in the streets, is pro-
nounced to be a condition very injurious to their
bodily de•telopment. The progress of the evil in
the rural districts has been, to some extent, ar-
rested by a beneficent standing order of the
House of Commons, that all Inclosure Bills
shall include provision for a reserve of land for ,
the public use for recreation. For children, how- '
ever, the most important reservations would be
those which could be made for play-grounds in
front of their homes, on plots where they may be
under the eye of their mothers or their neigh-
bours. Where the cottages are near a road, they
should be some distance from it, with the gar-
dens or play-ground in front. The separate or
distant play-grounds have many inconveniences,
besides their being out of sight; and where they
are far distant, they are comparatively useless. I
have great pleasure in being enabled to testify
that the instances are frequent where the regu-
lated resort to private pleasure-grounds, and
parks has been indulgently given for the recrea-
tion of the labouring population.

DWEIIESSING SUICIDE.—On Wednesday an inquest
was held by Mr. Wakley, at the Plough, Kensal green,
on Mr. Henry Mandy, aged 58, a licensed victualler, in
G eorge-street, Portman-square, who was found drowned
in the Paddington Canal on Monday. his wife was in-
terred in Kensal-green Cemetery, which he had since
been in the habit of frequenting, and visiting her tomb.
For some days previous to his death he had appeared
very uneasy, particularly at night, and very restless
in his manner. Monday evening he left his home for
the purpose of visiting his wife's grave, but did not
reach Kensal -green until after seven, at which hour,
the gates being closed, he could not btain admission.
From that time he was never again seen alive ; but
about nine o'clock, as John Moulding, in the employ of
Mr. Woods, of Kensal-green, was walking along the
north bank of the canal, he saw, by the light of the
moon, a hat and stick on the path, the stick being
driven through the crown of the hat into the earth to
Secure it ; and on looking further about, he distin-
guished something dark floating on the water. He
gave information to the police, and the drags having
been procured, the body of deceased was got out and
conveyed to the above inn, where every means for re•
storing animation were adopted, but without effect. The
Jury returned a verdict of " Temporary Insanity."
BEATING JONATIIAN.—A very singular investiga-
tion took place some time since before the Tribunal of
Termelad (Sweden), arising out of the following circum-
stances :—A robber having been condemned to death,
was hanged according to his sentence in the public high-
way. A miller returning home, perceiving that life was
not extinct, and influenced by a very natural feeling of
pity, cut him down and conveyed him to his mill. The
robber, on his recovery, could not resist his inclination to
resume his old habits, and, with unparalleled ingratitude,
exercised his dexterity on the man who had saved his
life. The miller, indignant at such monstrous conduct,
restored the thief to his gibbet, from which, this time,
no commisserating passenger relieved him. The Court
condemned the miller to several months' imprisonment
and a heavy fine, to act as a warning for the future not
to interrupt the course of law, or take the office of
executioner in his own hands.

The steam-ship Antwerpen, Captain Jackson, arrived
from Antwerp, yesterday, at St. Katharine's Wharf,
Tower. A thick fog prevailed during the early part of
the morning, but the passage was, notwithstanding, made
within 19 hours.

Mr. SERGEANT MURPHY, M.P.—Our senior re-
Tro;entative, Mr. Sergeant Murphy, arrived this day in
Cork, by the Dublin mail. The Hon. and Learned Gen-
tleman seems little the worse of his Parliamentary and
professional labours.—Cork Examiner.
CIDER AND PERRY.—These delightful beverages
(says a correspondent of the Gloucester Journal) will be
extremely cheap next month. Good perry will then be
sold at Ledbury at 255. for the hogshead of 100 gallons.
A large farmer at Dymock, near Ledbury,
has engaged
to deliver 2,000 gallons of excellent cider at Aberga-
venny, by the first week in November, at 6d. per gallon.
TRADE OF HULL.—There is an evident improve-
ment in the shipping and general business of this port,
but still there are a large number of British bottoms in
the dunks which have as yet had no employment since
lust back end, or having made one voyage, are already
laid up for the next winter.
ORIGIN OF THE TERM YANKEE.—The current
American term, Yankee, was a cant or favourite word
with one Jonathan Hastings, a settler at Cambridge,
'l'rolnsta an:lc excellent a" Yankee
good
cellent horse- go
and
o_ei allr
occa-
sion-. college
inter-
course America, about the year .l i 13. The inventor used
iiitotrcs)
eexpressYankeeexc ell e nec.iyd,.e
r,
meanr
a.
excellent cider. The students ofwere accustomed to hire horses of Jonathan; their
course with him, and his use of a
the neighbouring
word
sions% led them to adopt it, and they gave him the
of ~Yankee Jonathan." It was dispersed name
gians throughout New England, untilse by e
th
term of of reproach to all New Englanders, it became a settled
to all North Americans. and eventually
His Excellency Earl De Grey
Barnard and family, and Sir and suite, Colonel
London yesterday, by the GeneralF.
Pal rave arrived in
Company's steam-ship Wilberforce, Steam Navigation
from Antwerp. Capt. J. Stranack,
The General Steam Navigation Company's mail-
packet Giraffe, Captain R. Stranack arrived yesterday
at the Brunswick wharf, 131
ackwall, and landed her pas-
sengers and mail twenty-three hours after they had. em-
barked at Rotterdam. She made tho outward run in the
i like short time.