The Prince of Wales, on Monday, with considerable cere- monial,
laid the foundation-stone of the People's Palace at Mile End. The Palace is to be an institution for " the rational re- creation of the people," in accordance with the idea of Mr. Beaumont, who forty years ago left £12,000 for its realisation, and with the plan made so familiar by Mr. Besant in his novel, "All Sorts and Conditions of Men." There are to be technical schools and a splendid library, but there are also to be winter and summer gardens, a concert-hall, swimming-baths, and gymnasia, with any other amusements it is hereafter found possible to provide. The money required will be £100,000, of which £75,000 has been already collected, £12,000 coming from the Beaumont Fund, £20,000 from the Drapers' Company, and the remainder from public subscriptions. We have seen too many designs of the kind fail to be enthusiastic over a new one ; but the idea is originally sound, and there is no apparent reason for despondency. The East-Enders, shut up as they are in over- full little houses, need large buildings for recreation, and we do not see why they should manage them worse than the West- Enders do their clubs. In any event, the ready response of the well-to-do to the demand for subscriptions shows a strong amount of sympathy with the position of the working poor. The money was given, recollect, not to improve them, but to make their lives a little pleasanter and fuller of colour. They are grey lives in our climate at the best, and grey shades off rapidly into black.
Previous page
