Such is a slight sketch of some of London’s Parks. No doubt there is much that could be changed for the better, both in design and planting: less sameness and meaningless formality without true lines of beauty in design would be an improvement. In planting, there might be more variety of British trees--alder, oak, ash, and hawthorn; and a wider range of foreign ones--limes, American or Turkey oaks, and many others; more climbing plants, such as Virginian creepers, more simple herbaceous borders and fewer clumps of unattractive bushes, and more lilacs, laburnums, thorns, almonds, cherries, and medlars in groups on the grass. If greater originality was displayed and a thorough knowledge of horticulture were shown, especially by the authorities that supervise the largest number of these parks, many improvements in existing ones could be easily achieved, and in forming new parks the same idea need not be so rigidly followed. But, in spite of small defects, the Parks as a whole are extremely beautiful, and Londoners may well be proud of them. CHAPTER VIII COMMONS AND OPEN SPACES _’Tis very bad in man or woman To steal a goose from off the common, But who shall plead that man’s excuse Who steals the common from the goose?_ --AN OLD DITTY. It was only fifty years ago, when the want of fresh air and room for recreation was being realised, that people began to wake up to the truth that there were already great open spaces in London which ought to be cared for and preserved. It was brought home by the fact that over £1000 an acre was being paid to purchase market-gardens or fields so as to transform them into parks, while at the same time land which already belonged to the people was being recklessly sold away and built over. All through the history of most of the common lands encroachments of a more or less serious nature are recorded from time to time. The exercise of common rights also was often so unrestrained as to inflict permanent injury on the commons. The digging for gravel was frequently carried to excess, whins and brushwood were cut, and grass over-grazed until nothing remained. At last, in 1865, a Commons Preservation Society was formed with the view of arousing public attention to the subject. As is often the case, some people ran to the opposite extreme, and wished to transform the commons into parks without giving compensation to the freeholders and copyhold tenants, who thereby would lose considerable benefits. In some cases after the Metropolitan Commons Act of 1866 was passed, the Lord of the Manor, on behalf of all the freeholders, disputed the right of the Metropolitan Board of Works to take the land without compensation to the owners. The lord of the manor was considered unreasonable by some of the agitators for the transference of the common lands to public bodies, but he was fighting the battle of all the small owners. The freeholders in some