are in no very good humour when we observe the verdant-coated verderers of the Office of Woods and Forests, cutting away with ratans at poor little nursery girls and their helpless charges, who crowd round the gate of the inclosure; and all, forsooth, lest harm should arrive to the rum Duck Society's outlandish poultry! We tell the rum Duck Society, in plain terms, that the exclusion of one individual from a breath of the fresh air, or from an hour's repose on the green turf, is a greater public loss than if the necks were twisted off their whole exotic rookery! What business have a parcel of noblemen and gentlemen to convert a public place of recreation like this into an aquatic zoological garden, if, by so doing, the laws respecting admission become more stringent, and the public, or part and parcel thereof, are excluded? Why do not they, with their ducks and ducklings, geese and goslings, betake themselves to the society of their brother naturals in the Regent's Park?
We are sorry to observe, too, that there is much insolence displayed by the green men who keep the gates, towards decent poor people, who may be desirous of taking a mouthful of fresh air within the inclosure.
Do these fellows recollect that themselves and their masters, the grounds they are appointed to protect, and the green coats they wear, are bought, fed, maintained, and paid for by the taxation, direct and indirect, contributed from the sweat of the brow of that very poor fellow, among others, this moment repulsed from the gate—for no reason on earth that I can discover, save that, like myself, circumstances incline him to a preference of a four-and-ninepenny hat, or because, like myself, he may be disinclined to wear goat-skin on his fingers.
We venture to hint to the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, what it is altogether unlikely persons of their class would ever discover by their own natural capacity, that although a man may walk under a four-and-ninepenny hat, he is not therefore necessarily a highwayman; or that, although he may not have goat-skin on his fingers, does it follow that he intends to insinuate his digits into the pockets of every body he may happen to meet? We should be sorry to see St James's Park appropriated to the exclusive use of the gentility-mongers.
The gentility-mongers are already in possession of Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park; surely these are sufficient for the pedestrian and equitative wants of
"The twice two thousand for whom earth was made."
And surely St James's Park may be opened to every body, however humble, whose dress and deportment do not outrage public decency. We hope the Commissioners of Woods and Forests will have pity upon decent poor people, and that there may be no official prejudice against them because they are industrious, and the producers of our national wealth and tax-created splendour. It does our heart good, on the first Sunday in spring, to see the decent artisan, his respectable industrious wife, and two or three homely toddling little children, issue from the dusky alley in which they have toiled the tedious winter through, to inhale a mouthful of the Almighty's untaxed air, and to refresh their brick-confounded eyes with a bit of nature's unadulterated green. A Chancellor of the Exchequer, to be sure, would rather see the whole family in a gin-shop, for the sake of the revenue, and because the budget would be all the better for it; but, the Lord be praised, we are not a Chancellor of the Exchequer!
Another turn up the Mall, and at the angle formed by the southern and western sides of the enclosure of the Duke of Sutherland—a piece of ground large enough to spread her apron on, as Sarah, Dutchess of Marlborough, said of it—we find an entrance into the enclosure of
The Green Park,
Which we propose to circumambulate, strolling leisurely up the eastern acclivity, to the reservoir—thence descending the shady, and, but for the racket of the neighbouring Piccadilly, retired walk down to where Rosamond's Pond was formerly situated, and where a number of umbrageous elms still encircle the spot; thence, ascending once again by the ranger's house, with its tastefully laid out enclosure, we emerge on the far-famed Constitution Hill, and pause awhile to look about
