in some sort a prohibitive character, and, as the injury done by the advertisements is proportionate to their size, the tax must be progressive." The scale varies from 50 francs a year per square metre for notices below six square metres in superficies to 400 francs per square metre for those above 20 square metres. The owner of the site would share the responsibility of the person erecting the notices, and is liable further to a special duty on his gains from this source.

It remains only to record that the Chamber of Deputies on the 8th July, and the Senate three days after, adopted the Government proposal unanimously and without discussion. On the 12th it was promulgated. The only modification was the postponement to July 1st, 1915, of its enforcement in the case of current contracts. But this exemption does not apply to advertisements on the scheduled sites.

It must be explained that the tax will fall only on advertisements exhibited at a distance of 100 metres from an inhabited place (agglomération de maisons et de bâtiments), and that advertisements on walls of houses or enclosures are exempt.

Although our neighbors have led the way in employing taxation as a means of repression, England may claim priority in the policy of regulation. After fourteen years of patient effort, the Scapa Society had the satisfaction of seeing the principle it advocated adopted, with general good will, in the Advertisements Regulation Act of 1907. This goes very far indeed beyond the limits to which French legislation is confined. It empowers local authorities to frame by-laws "for regulating, restricting, or preventing the exhibition of advertisements in such manner or by such means as to affect injuriously the amenities of a public park or pleasure promenade or to disfigure the natural beauty of a landscape." It is only now that local authorities are showing a general disposition to avail themselves of the provisions of the law. The delay was not due to indifference. For several years the Home Office was naturally reluctant to sanction by-laws which followed the simple wording of the section. The method preferred, and indeed prescribed, by the Home Office was that of scheduling defined areas; and no surprise need be felt that the Council, say, of such a county as Devonshire, could not easily prepare a list of all the spots which should be saved from disfigurement. The three Lake Counties found a way out of the difficulty by scheduling parishes by the dozen; but though this was approved at Whitehall, it was intimated that regions to which Nature was less prodigal in gifts must catalogue their treasures. Happily the Hants County Council was able to propose an arrangement which found favor with the

Secretary of State. Their by-law ordains that "no advertisement shall be exhibited on any hoarding, stand, or other erection visible from any public highway (whether carriage way, bridle way, or foot way) and so placed as to disfigure the natural beauty of the landscape." The way being thus opened, other local authorities have followed the lead, the by-law in the later forms being improved by the insertion of words specifically including the view from railways, rivers and public places. The process of protec tion being once started it will go on apace. It is worthy of note that famous pleasure resorts such as Scarborough and historic cities such as Exeter have been able to schedule fairly extensive

areas.

SCENIC AND HISTORIC PRESERVATION IN GREAT

BRITAIN.

Peace Centenary and Sulgrave Manor.

Traditions of blood relationship give to the people of the United States a peculiar interest in the movement to preserve the landmarks of Great Britain, and it has been gratifying to learn that during the past two years a special effort has been made to preserve Sulgrave Manor, the home of the ancestral Washingtons, in connection with the rounding out of the first century of unbroken peace between Great Britain and the United States. There are several buildings in England which appeal strongly to American sentiment on account of their connection with American history. Among them may be mentioned the home of Bradford at Austerfield; the home of Brewster at Scrooby; the Guild Hall in Boston in which the Puritans who tried to escape to Holland were imprisoned; the Washington house in Washington village near Durham; the Washington houses in Sulgrave and Brington; the Sulgrave, Brington and Purleigh Churches,* etc. Of the churches, the Purleigh Church is most in need of attention, for according to our last advices its tower was so insecure and crumbling that its chimes could not be rung. There is no danger to the Guild Hall at Boston, as it is a public building.

Of the ancestral Washington homes, that at Sulgrave is probably the best known and most frequently visited. At the time of

* For an extended description of George Washington's English antecedents and associated landmarks see our Seventeenth Annual Report (1912).

the World's Fair in St. Louis, 1904, there was a report in England that the Sulgrave Manor House was to be purchased for erection in St. Louis, but although, as inquiry showed, a dealer either had an option to buy the house or was in treaty to do so, nothing came of it. Since then, there have been periodical rumors in England that the house was to be purchased, but they have been regarded locally as due to the prospecting of speculative agents, and little attention has been paid to them. At the present time, however, we are led to believe that the international committee for the celebration of the completion of a century of peace among English-speaking peoples is seriously fostering the idea of the purchase of the building and its preservation in situ as a public monument to the ties of friendship which bind our two countries together. This proposition was publicly alluded to at the time of the meeting of the British Committee held in the Mansion House in London on December 18, 1912, and presided over by the Lord Mayor of London. At the same time, it was generously proposed that a monument to George Washington be erected in Westminster Abbey or Westminster Hall. The plans of the British committee also include lectureships at the principal universities, prizes for essays on Anglo-American relations, and new school readers.

It is estimated that for these purposes from $250,000 to $300,000 will be necessary, and substantial subscriptions have already been received.

The Hon. Whitelaw Reid, American Ambassador to Great Britain, who died on December 15, 1912, had expected to attend the meeting above referred to and had written a letter in which he said:

"The physicians will not consent to my attending the public meeting at the Mansion House to help start your movement for celebrating the 100th anniversary of peace between our two countries. I especially wished to be present because I regard this as an event of enormous importance, and I think that failure to give it such a celebration as should challenge the attention of the whole world would be a crime."

Earl Grey, who outlined the plan for the celebration, referring to the question which had arisen between the United States and Great Britain in regard to discriminations in the matter of tolls.

by the United States in favor of American vessels passing through the Panama Canal, said that he could not forget that he was speaking at a moment when difficulties had arisen in respect to the interpretation of an Anglo-American treaty, but his experience in America had taught him " to know Americans too well not to have implicit confidence in their sense of national honor and fairness and in their desire to settle each question as it arises with the same regard for the rights of others that we claim to accord ourselves."

Plans for Beautifying London.

At a meeting of the London Society, presided over by the Lord Mayor of London in the Mansion House in that City on Saturday, February 1, 1913, ambitious plans for beautifying the City were outlined.

Lord Curzon said that the object of that society was to make London beautiful where beauty did not already exist, and to keep it beautiful where it already was so. His remarks, as summarized in a cable despatch in the New York Herald of February 2, were to the effect that London was beautiful already by fits and starts, in nooks and corners, in parts and sections. There were deformities in the figure of London, there were plague spots on the skin of London which all would like to see removed, and the London Society was to be the physician which was to give the prescription. London had never been to the Englishmen exactly what Paris was to the Frenchman or what Berlin was increasingly becoming to the German. The Englishman preferred to think of rustic villages, and his first idea was to get away from London. His dream of the London of the future looked to the south of the river. He would like to make a clean sweep and have a large conception.

Sir Aston Webb said that the society desired to see the Thames on the south side embanked from Westminster to Southwark Cathedral. If that were done the Thames would be the noblest river passing through the noblest capital of any empire. Another thing they would like to see was a great thoroughfare from the southern end of Westminster Bridge and forming a short and direct communication between the City and the west.

Rumored Sales of Historic Properties.

During the past few years, several buildings in England besides the Sulgrave Manor Hall before mentioned have been the subject of rumored sales to Americans for transportation to the United States. The historic Tattershall Castle in Lincolnshire was one such building. In February, 1913, it was stated in the public press that a well-known American has offered to buy the Tithe Barn at Maidstone with the idea of bringing it to this country.* It is over 600 years old, and the fear that it will be lost to England has caused much agitation among archaeologists there. We are frank to say that we have little sympathy with projects for the removal of historic buildings from one country to another. It sometimes becomes necessary, as has been the case many times in the United States, to move an historic building from its original site to a neighboring place to prevent its destruction, but the deliberate buying of an historic building for removal to another country merely for the sake of possession violates an instinctive sense of propriety. The traditions of an historical building intimately related to its original location, that to take the building away from its site depreciates the historical value of both building and site, for neither, separated from the other, can be the same as it was when the two were joined together.

This is true, in perhaps a lesser degree, with works of art and portable decorations; but long established custom has countenanced the transfer of works of art from one country to another; and while a country cannot but look with regret upon the loss of great paintings, sculptures, tapestries, and rare books which may go beyond its borders, yet such changes of ownership conduce to the dissemination of culture, and have come to be looked upon as natural and proper.

Nevertheless, even with this justification, one cannot but sympathize with the national regret which was felt at the sale and

A cable despatch from London, dated March 29, 1913, stated that the Mayor of Maidstone had started a fund for the purpose of buying and preserving the building and that at that time $3,500 of the requisite $8,000 had been secured. At a meeting of the Maidstone Town Council April 30, the Mayor announced that the local Government Board had empowered the Council to borrow $10,000, to be repaid in sixty years, to enable it to purchase the Tithe Barn. The Council intends to use the building as a fire station.