But it is not of squares in the mathematical sense that I speak to-day, but rather of those enclosed spaces, most irregularly shaped and proportioned, which go by the name of "Squares" in London. It is in sultry August that the value of these spaces is most clearly perceived; for now the better-disposed owners fling open the gates of their squares and suffer them to become, at least temporarily, the resting-places of the aged and decrepit, and the playgrounds of the children. To extend these benefits more widely and to secure them in perpetuity are objects for which civic reformers have long striven; and during the present session of Parliament[6] (for, as Dryasdust would remind us, Parliament is not prorogued but only adjourned) two Acts have been passed which may do something at least towards attaining the desired ends. One of these Acts provides that, in cases where "Open Spaces and Burial Grounds" are vested in Trustees, the Trustees may transfer them to the Local Authorities, to be maintained for the use and service of the public. The other forbids for all time the erection of buildings on certain squares and gardens which belong to private owners, those owners having consented to this curtailment of their powers. The conjunction of "Burial Grounds" with "Open Spaces" in the purview of the former Act has a rather lugubrious sound; but in reality it points to one of the happiest changes which recent years have brought to London. [6] August 1906. "A hemmed-in churchyard, pestiferous and obscene, whence malignant diseases are communicated to the bodies of our dear brothers and sisters who have not departed--here, in a beastly scrap of ground which a Turk would reject as a savage abomination and a Caffre would shudder at, they bring 'our dear brother here departed' to receive Christian burial. With houses looking on, on every side, save where a reeking little tunnel of a court gives access to the iron gate--with every villainy of life in action close on death and every poisonous element of death in action close on life,--here they lower our dear brother down a foot or two; here sow him in corruption, to be raised in corruption; an avenging ghost at many a sick-bedside; a shameful testimony to future ages that civilization and barbarism walked this boastful island together." When Dickens wrote that hideous description, worthy to be illustrated by Hogarth in his most realistic mood, he did not exaggerate--he could not exaggerate--the obscenity of burial-grounds in crowded cities. To-day they are green with turf and bright with flowers, and brighter still with the unconquerable merriment of childhood at play among the dim memorials of the forgotten dead. What is true of the particular spot which Dickens described is true all over London; and the resting-places of the departed have been made oases of life and health in this arid wilderness of struggling and stifled humanity.