smoke effectually prevents anything, whether faces and hands or
bricks and mortar, from looking fresh and clean, it is not
hanging heavily enough to trouble a Londoner.

This desert of unattractiveness has its oasis. Near the outer end
of the Hackney Road is a park of 217 acres, fenced in, not by
railings, but by a wooden paling, and containing plenty of
greensward, trees, a lake for bathers, flower beds with the
flowers arranged carefully in patterns by the admired cockney art
of carpet gardening and a sandpit, imported from the seaside for
the delight of the children, but speedily deserted on its
becoming a natural vermin preserve for all the petty fauna of
Kingsland, Hackney and Hoxton. A bandstand, an unfinished forum
for religious, anti-religious and political orators, cricket
pitches, a gymnasium, and an old fashioned stone kiosk are among
its attractions. Wherever the prospect is bounded by trees or
rising green grounds, it is a pleasant place. Where the ground
stretches far to the grey palings, with bricks and mortar, sky
signs, crowded chimneys and smoke beyond, the prospect makes it
desolate and sordid.

The best view of Victoria Park is from the front window of St.
Dominic's Parsonage, from which not a single chimney is visible.
The parsonage is a semi-detached villa with a front garden and a
porch. Visitors go up the flight of steps to the porch:
tradespeople and members of the family go down by a door under
the steps to the basement, with a breakfast room, used for all
meals, in front, and the kitchen at the back. Upstairs, on the
level of the hall door, is the drawing-room, with its large plate
glass window looking on the park. In this room, the only