Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/807

 ought to begin at once to give their constitutions some chance of recovery; they ought regularly to take as much exercise as they can endure without distressing fatigue; and in a few months they would be surprised to find how greatly the length of their walks may be increased, and with what immense benefit they are attended.

Women in the lower classes of society may to a large extent share in the recreation of their male relatives; and I feel confident that the more those kinds of recreation are encouraged which invite participation by both sexes, the better. Great additional enjoyment is infused into a holiday if it can be spent in company with those most near and dear; the heart is then most open to the best influences of affection, and family ties are closest drawn in hours of happiness together. Such institutions as the Crystal and Alexandra Palaces, where a variety of amusements are provided at a cheap cost in country air and amid aesthetic surroundings, constitute the best type of institutions for the healthy and improving recreation of both sexes and all ages. Of parks and public pleasure-gardens I have already spoken, and the desirability of preserving commons and heaths in the near neighborhood of large towns is generally recognized. I will only add that no time ought to be lost in promoting the suggestion recently made to the First Commissioner of Public Works by the National Sunday League—viz., that in all such places of public resort harmless refreshments ought to be plentifully provided. As a type of more strictly town recreation, that which is afforded by the Polytechnic Institution deserves honorable mention, and the sustained popularity of the Moore and Burgess Minstrels' entertainment goes far to indicate that a much more healthy tone might be given to the entertainments which are generally provided by music-halls. Now that Cremorne Gardens, the Argyll Rooms, and similar places of public resort are being closed, there is certain to be a greater pressure of vice thrown upon the music halls, and the increased demand for low, quasi-immoral entertainments which will thus be set up is only too certain to be supplied. It is greatly to be deplored that, excepting the "gods" galleries in theatres, there are now scarcely any places where respectable women of the lower classes can witness a public entertainment that is not more or less of a degrading kind. Philanthropists would do well to start in London several People's Theatres, where amusing dramas, part-singing, and other forms of innocent entertainment, would be sufficiently attractive to render the theatres self-supporting. I have no doubt that, if this were done, there would be a very marked distinction between the character of the audiences attending such theatres and that of the audiences which now attend the music-halls.

Before quitting the class of workingwomen, I must put in a good word for penny readings, mothers' meetings, window-gardening, and last, though not least, I should like to recommend some general and definite system for the loaning of books at a nominal cost.