What is the cost of maintenance of these parks is a question that will naturally occur; and the answer in many cases is easy to find, as the statistics of both the London County Council Parks, published in their handbook, and those of the Royal Parks, which are submitted to Parliament every year, are accessible. The following extracts may, however, be useful. In looking at the two sets of figures, of course the acreage must be borne in mind, and the great expense of police in the Royal Parks, amounting to �8782 for Hyde Park alone, must be deducted before any fair comparison can be made, even when results are not considered. London has always been a city of gardens, and although much boast is made of the newly-acquired open spaces, a wail for those destroyed would have equal justification. It is very terrible that everything in life has to be learnt by slow and hard lessons, dearly purchased under the iron rod of experience. It is not till the want of a green spot is brought painfully home to people by its loss, that the thought of saving the last remaining speck of greenery is borne in upon them with sufficient force to transform the wish into action. For generations garden after garden has passed into building land. No one has a right to grudge the wealth or prosperity that has accrued in consequence, but the wish that the benevolence and foresight of past days had taken a different bent, and that a more systematic retention of some of the town gardens had received attention, cannot be banished.
