The area of parks in London, England, is proportioned to the immensity.of the city. Only a small part of them are broken by carriage roads; nearly their whole extent being dedicated to the exclusive use of pedestrians. Its seven great parks are: Hyde, containing about 400 acres, intersected by walks and carriage roads, (including the famous saddle-horse drive called Rotten Row) clothed with old forests, and graced by the lake called Serpentine; Kensington gardens, an adjoining royal park of about the same size, further from the city; Green, a smaller pedestrian park, by which Hyde park may he approached; Regent's, nearly circular, with 450 acres, and having zo ological and botanic gardens; Victoria park, with 290 acres, Battersea park, 820 acres, 20 acres, are almost exclusively for pedestrians; as well as the great Botanic gardens of Kew outside of London. Paris is more noted for the elegance and great number of its place-parks and avenues for promenades than for real parks. The latter have become numerous of late years, and are even more recent than the Cen tral park of New 'York. The Bois de Boulogne, an ancient wood belonging to the crown, was given to the public about 1852. It contains 2,250 acres, not particularly interesting by nature, with no noble trees, but treated with all the graces of art pos sible to cover its natural deficiencies. Carriage drives and promenades traverse it in every. part, and four artificial lakes are its most Interesting feature. The most striking new park in the city is the Balla Chaumont in the n.e. quarter, occupying the site of extensive old stone quarries. It embraces 62 acres, and is picturesque to a degree that renders it peculiarly charming and surprising in the midst of the city on the unsightly place of the exhausted quarry. It is probably the. highest triumph of modern taste and skill in park creation. The-park Monceaux is a smaller example of similar skill. The
old gardens of the Tuileries already alluded to, and the somewhat similar gardens of the Luxembourg, though more like gardens than parks in their treatment, are so completely used by the public that they fulfill all the uses of parks. Paris is provided with park resorts outside of the city to a greater extent than any other city. All the old chateau forests and hunting grounds of successive kings of France are now the property of the state, and furnish attractions in every direction out of the city. St. Cloud, Versailles, Vincennes, Fontainebleau, the latter one of the most picturesque and extensive of old royal hunting forests, are the most noted. Smaller cities in France and throughout Europe abound in beautiful small parks contiguous to their population, most of which have been improvements of the last 30 years, made possible by the possession by muni cipalities of suitable ground previously used by the public, but not specially improved for their enjoyment.
Private parks of much extent are everywhere decreasing rather than increasing, especially in the United States. The ambition for family laud estates after the man nee of the English was once general among the wealthy. The inheritors of estates under grants, like the Livingstons and Van Renssellaers on the Hudson, for merly maintained private parks of great beauty. But the care and expense of main taining a large and hospitable establishment, the loneliness of the mansion occupants without such tax for hospitality, and the weight of taxes concentrated on lands, have tended of late years to the abandonment of the park establishments and the sale and subdivision of such properties. In short, it is the tendency of civilization to make pub lic parks instead of private ones.