Rose Moutray Read

"... was born. Merchant, traveller, philanthropist and author, his business took him to Spain and , and his journeyings furnished matter for sundry tomes when he retired with a fortune. But it is a public benefactor, particularly to the seafaring-folk, that his name is chiefly remembered, and and are his best memorials. Yet, when the very titles of his seventy publications are lost altogether, and his efforts to promote s and redress the trying lot of the ers are alike forgotten, one fact may keep his memory green—he was the first man to walk the streets of London under an umbrella! Another local philanthropist was , the originator of s, and the queer little house where the cobbler lived is still in Highbury Street. Not far off was the . It was afterwards removed to the now about on High Street."

"... in Spring we can hold our own with the best. in variety nestle in the s; s dance in radiant glory by the thousand along the banks of streams, and stray into field and woodland; s life their delicate faces at the heel of every hedge, and carpet all the shaws; s are not lacking in the meadows, and the early purple, spotted, green-winged, meadow, and marsh s, spread their lavenders and purples among the lush grass, where the evasive peachy-mauve of adds its shimmer of delicate colour."

"In my despair—for it had arrived at that, so futile seemed my killings—I worried experts for some slugicide that would not kill my plants, but only their destroyers; and finally one day in I poured my woes out in the sympathetic ear of . The Director of the has need to be most patient if many others question him as I have done. HIs answer in this case was prompt, direct, and simple—"A and a ." So then the war on s really began."