_Milverton_. Well, but to go on with schemes for improving London. Open spaces, trees—then comes the supply of water. This is one of the first things to be done. Philadelphia has given an example which all towns ought to imitate. It is a matter requiring great thought, and the various plans should be thoroughly canvassed before the choice is made. Great beauty and the highest utility may be combined in supplying a town like London with water. By the way, how much water do you think London requires daily? _Ellesmere_. As much as the Serpentine and the water in St. James’s Park. _Milverton_. You are not so far out. Well, then, having gone through the largest things that must be attended to, we come to minor matters. It is a great pity that the system of building upon leases should be so commonly adopted. Nobody expects to live out the leasehold term which he takes to build upon. But things would be better done if people were more averse to having anything to do with leasehold property. C. always says that the modern lath-and-plaster system is a wickedness, and upon my word I think he is right. It is inconceivable to me how a man can make up his mind to build, or to do anything else, in a temporary, slight, insincere fashion. What has a man to say for himself who must sum up the doings of his life in this way, “I chiefly employed myself in making or selling things which seemed to be good and were not, and nobody has occasion to bless me for anything I have done.” _Ellesmere_. Humph! you put it mildly. But the man has made perhaps seven per cent. off his money; or, if he has made no per cent., has ruined several men of his own trade, which is not to go for nothing when a man is taking stock of his good deeds. _Milverton_. There is one thing I forgot to say, that we want more individual will in building, I think. As it is at present, a great builder takes a plot of ground and turns out innumerable houses, all alike, the same faults and merits running through each, thus adding to the general dulness of things. _Ellesmere_. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, when she came from abroad, remarked that all her friends seemed to have got into drawing-rooms which were like a grand piano, first a large square or oblong room, and then a small one. Quite Georgian, this style of architecture. But now I think we are improving immensely—at any rate in the outside of houses. By the way, Milverton, I want to ask you one thing: How is it that Governments and Committees, and the bodies that manage matters of taste, seem to be more tasteless than the average run of people? I will wager anything that the cabmen round Trafalgar Square would have made a better thing of it than it is. If you had put before them several prints of fountains, they would not have chosen those.