North Of
This Park Rises Primrose Hill, A Bare, Grassy Eminence, Which I Hear Has
Been Purchased For A Public Ground And Will Be Planted With Trees.
All
round these immense inclosures, presses the densest population of the
civilized world.
Within, such is their extent, is a fresh and pure
atmosphere, and the odors of plants and flowers, and the twittering of
innumerable birds more musical than those of our own woods, which build
and rear their young here, and the hum of insects in the sunshine. Without
are close and crowded streets, swarming with foot-passengers, and choked
with drays and carriages.
These parks have been called the lungs of London, and so important are
they regarded to the public health and the happiness of the people, that I
believe a proposal to dispense with some part of their extent, and cover
it with streets and houses, would be regarded in much the same manner as a
proposal to hang every tenth man in London. They will probably remain
public grounds as long as London has an existence.
The population of your city, increasing with such prodigious rapidity;
your sultry summers, and the corrupt atmosphere generated in hot and
crowded streets, make it a cause of regret that in laying out New York, no
preparation was made, while it was yet practicable, for a range of parks
and public gardens along the central part of the island or elsewhere, to
remain perpetually for the refreshment and recreation of the citizens
during the torrid heats of the warm season.
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