paper I am writing, which is intended to
be an essay on the ethics of out-door
amusements? Well, only this much, that
it serves to show that such a subject
should lose nothing at the hands of one
who is insanely attached to an al fresco
existence. Whenever my wanderings in
summer-time have led me into the larger
cities of the Old and New Worlds, my
first inquiry, when seeking an hour's
pleasure, has been for the nearest public
garden. Thus, on my first visit to Paris,
in the golden period of my life, I was
soon inducted into the mysteries of all its
famous places of open air amusement. In
Vienna it was not long before I had
visited every café concert in the Prater,
had watched the mazy waltz at the Sperle,
and had quaffed my Bavarian beer while
listening to the music of Strauss in the
Volksgarten. At Naples I have sauntered for
hours in the alleys of the Villa Reale,
dreaming to the murmur of the moonlit
waters as they broke in a silver fringe
along the sands at my feet. In Milan I
have listened to the receding footsteps of
the last wayfarer, while I, the last
consumer at the cafe on the Piazza del Duomo,
took my last sip of granita, glancing
upwards through the wreathy mist from my
cigarette at the star-bespangled tracery of
the hundred pinnacles of the most
exquisite of cathedrals. And away towards the
Far West I have drunk my lager beer in
the beer-gardens of Cincinnati, and smoked
the calumet of peace where, but little more
than half a century ago, the Red Indian
pitched his wigwam. So, I think, that my
views of out-door life will at least be
allowed to be the views of a man who has
studied his subject.

In the first place, I maintain that we,
as a people, do not understand amusing
ourselves in the open. Perhaps the
influences of climate may have a great deal
to do with this inaptitude, but still there
was a time when our highest social classes
did not disdain our Ranelaghs and
Vauxhalls. After all, with two such summers
as that of last year and this, I ought
scarcely to abuse the climate as the cause;
for, with the thermometer at something
over eighty degrees, anything was
preferable to the Turkish-bath atmosphere of
our theatres, or the oven-like density of our
homes. Whatever may be the preventive
influence, it is certain that in these days
our better classes hold steadily aloof from the
public gardens, which now seek their
support from the most undesirable portion of
our population. Have we grown coarser
in our manners when thrown together at
open-air entertainments? It would seem
so; for those who have any claims to
respectability and position have entirely
forsaken the amusements to be found at
those places which have succeeded to the
Ranelagh, Vauxhall, and Marylebone
Gardens of the last century.

But, again, this reasoning would hardly
seem logical, for we are continually
flattering ourselves on the great improvement
which has come over our social condition;
and, indeed, in these days of progress, the
bearing of a city clerk or a gentleman of
the counter, is said to be equal, if not
superior, to that of my lord in 1770. At
that period, I believe, it was customary for
a gentleman to esteem himself a two-bottle
man; but as they dined early in those days,
I presume Jack Hardcastle and Toby
Trenchard had time to work off the vinous
fumes before escorting Lady Betty and
her companions to the famous Rotunda at
Chelsea. We certainly have few or no two-
bottle men now, but the more plebeian frequenters
of our gardens in 1870, manage,
nevertheless, to get very noisy and
objectionable on vast quantities of brandy and
soda-water, to the great scandal of the more
sober seekers after amusement. This age
of ours is a great leveller, outwardly, of
rank and position, for the broad cloth and
fashions of to-day make it difficult to
distinguish between the nobleman and the
commonest commoner. But the taint of
vulgarity and ill-breeding is morally certain
to assert itself, and is too frequently
conspicuous among those who now seek their
pleasure out of doors.

The absence of the better classes cannot
certainly be traced to the smallness of the
fee demanded at the gates of, say, for
instance, Cremorne; for the proprietors of
Vauxhall, in 1739, advertised that a
thousand tickets would be issued to subscribers
at twenty-five shillings each, to admit two
persons every evening during the entire
season. Those persons who did not come thus
provided, were to be charged one shilling
for admission. How careful they were of
their company at the old gardens in the old
time, is plain from a further notice to this
effect: " All subscribers are desired not to
permit their tickets to get into the hands
of persons of evil repute, it being
absolutely necessary to exclude all such." And
where can we expect to see again such a
picture as is here described by a
last-century chronicler? Writing of Vauxhall and