The number of letters which have already been received regarding the Council's proposal to increase the cost of admission tickets as a means of curbing the destruction which is being wrought in Jessfield Park shows the interest which is taken in that open space. Successive municipal gardeners have transformed it into a thing of great beauty, and it was with some disquiet that a note in the Country Diary was received telling of the manner in which the park, through no fault of the municipal gardener, was deteriorating. It seems inevitable that the large numbers who attend the Park should do serious damage to the turf. That apparently cannot be avoided, except, perhaps, by the limitation of admission by increasing the price. Judging from correspondents' letters on the subject, there is still much damage done by thoughtless people more bent upon their own Particular interests than on the necessity of ce-operating with the authorities in maintaining the beauty of the place. The treading down of flower beds, the tearing of branches from the shrubs, and actual purloining of plants are all matters which need to be dealt more definitely than by merely increasing the cost of admission. Incidentally it may be remarked that the increases are so small as not likely to be productive of. much good effect, The suggestion that the example of the French authorities should be followed and that a sufficiently large number of park-keepers should be continually on duty to' preserve the amenities of the place seems to be the real solution of the problem. The prosecution of a few people found carrying off municipal property in the shape of flowers and plants might also prove salutary, for, after all, those things belong to the community which is entitled to expect that they shall be preserved for the delectation of the whole, rather than as a medium for the express sion of those marauding instincts which apparently some humans do not appear to be able to keep under control. If keepers are indeed the real solution, they should be employed, before the Jessfield Park is reduced to a mere ruin of its former self.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.