Page:Hardwicke's Science-Gossip - Volume 1.pdf/65



OLITICAL agitations do not originate from the laboratories or libraries of men of science, neither do these generally enter upon the political arena, or take an active part in discussing the merits of new measures, or the measures of new men. It is only when changes are proposed, or innovations are threatened, which are likely to influence their favourite pursuits, that they awake, as it were from a dream, and inquire, What do these things mean? And even then they do not speak or act as diplomatists, and their conception of the question is bounded only by the good or ill which is likely to accrue to them and their "hobby." We are not ambitious to be regarded as politicians of any school. Scarcely able to define the genus or species of any legislative phenomenon who figures in the pages of Hansard, or to unravel the mysteries of a twelve hours' debate, we nevertheless arouse now and then to a sound of "Enclosure of Waste Lands," which we translate into the more homely phrase of "Short-Commons." Whether or not there is any present fear of more absorption in this direction we are not prophets enough to tell, and we care little to inquire. It is sufficient for us to suffer the hallucination of Hampstead Heath laid out in squares, adorned with villas, cut up into terraces, and sacrificed to the demon of bricks and mortar. For us the vision of Wimbledon Common surrounded by miles of monotonous palisades, and laid out in trim parallelograms of level grass, intersected by the cleanest of gravel walks, is enough, be it only a vision, to arouse us from exploring the "Origin of Species" to protest against the "Origin of Parks," and the absorption of "the last of commons."

Not "the last of the commons," and not "closed to the public" are the pleas put in against us. Are not Wandsworth Common and the Black Sea left? Is there not a common at Barnes, or Esher, or Weybridge? And if Hainault is gone, and Epping is going, is not the New Forest left? We are not politicians, so perhaps all this is as it should be. It may be right enough to give to "Labour" its Saturday half-holiday, that it may go out of town and enjoy itself, and hold converse with Nature face to face, and at the same time drive Nature so far out of town, that a half-day is too short to reach her domains. Such changes may be in perfect accordance with the spirit of improvement, and our spirit may be stupid and stubborn to rebel. We might know better if we were politicians. Let our friend the mechanic, who has for five days and a half laboured in hope that during the latter half of the sixth day he shall run down to Wimbledon to collect a few plants or insects, hear the birds sing, scramble amongst the furze, and feel the cool fresh breeze blowing the smoke out of his hair, pause awhile, and picture to himself a future. In that day there shall be no more furze, or heather, or buttercups and daisies; the bluebell and the fern must give place to asters and chrysanthemums, and the furze be uprooted that the laurel and Aucuba may stand in its place. No daisy must dare to bloom in the shorn grass under peril of decapitation. The butterfly and dragon-fly, no longer denizens, but poachers or burglars, must seek the recesses of 3