HANDSOME PROFIT

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23319, 3 May 1941, Page 8

HANDSOME PROFIT

■v:— .■ 1 ; v, ■ . [By WHIM-WHAM] “Is city beautification worth while?” asked Mr E.,H, Andrews, in an address to the Christchurch Beautifying Society. “Some people say it is not worth the'cost: I say it is worth it 100 times over. It pays handsomely. . . The parks were open spaces for the health and recreation of young and old; interest was stimulated in horticulture and arboriculture; and many more visitors, which meant more circulation of money, were attracted to the city.— News item. With no afboficultural Eye I contemplate my City’s Beauty; Nor do I feel it is my Duty Portentously to justify On some utilitarian Ground The Lawns and Trees that here abound, I know there’s Plenty to be said For Public Health and Recreation. • I don’t regret the Circulation Of Money Visitors may shed, Who‘Come (presumably) to .gaze On garden Plots and leafy Ways. But I'must deprecate the View, Whether explicit or implied, That Cities should be beautified For vulgar Gains that may accrue— Not Gardening done for Gardening’s Sake, But Horticulture on the Make! ' The . meanest Flower that blows could give, To Wordsworth, Thoughts too deep for Tears; But in our Cities, it appears, The meanest Flower that blows can live Only if—like our mortgaged Earth— It gives us back lour Money’s Worth!