The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1859-11-13

so extraordinary conversion, marked by all
the signs of saving grace.
1 The Central Park-Its Social, Moral, Sant-
| tary and Financial influences.
On last Saturday very important movement
| towards the completion of the silent re evolution
which is taking place in this metropolis was
made by the Commissioners of the Central
Park They threw open to the public one Of
| the grand drives in the Park, magnificent
| promenade four miles in extent This is added
70 the attractions of the Ramble, the rural
beauties of which are gratefully enjoyed on
every Sabbath by thousands of the overworked,
badly lodged and poorly fed people of this
great metropolis.
| Every day we begin to appreciate more and
more, and better and better, the refining and
elevating influences of our great Park. 1t will
cause in the Grst place q marked social revo-
luton. Comparing favorably in every mate
rial way with the parks Of London and Paris
| it will still be free from the imputation of
being servile copy Of the European public
grounds and squares. In London and Paris
| the number Of people of great wealth rs much
| larger in proportion to the population than
! it is in New York. There is, likewise,
| in the great European cities, dis.
tinctivc class, which includes the man
Of leisure, or the man about town, who has no
earthly way of killing time without outdoor
\ sports. This class of men, attaches to fashiona
BILE society, may always be found on horseback
| in the park, joining in the fashionable prone
made, before dinner. They canter here and
there, now stopping to criticise each others
| horses or clothes, now riding up to an elegant
! equpage and dropping compliment or the
| last BON mot into the ear Of its fair occupant
| and thus getting over the awful period between
lunch and dinner. This interesting class Of the
community have means, lodgings, where man
| keeps his clothes and sometimes sleeps; he lives
at a club, and spends half his time on horse
| back. Others of the upper classes-the no
bility and gentry, the equity earls, young sena-
! tors and placemen, bellies just coming out and
| fat dowagers just going in-all in the most
| magnificent equipages, throng the parks every
| afternoon; and while they make up scene of
| gayety, fashion and friyolity almost bewilder-
ing, at the first view, to an American, they COM
| pletely ignore and extinguish the lower and
middle classes, who, if they could afford it,
would never think Of competing in show with
| their hereditary rulers.
| In this country, happily, such distinctions are
almost unknown. To-day Mr.. Coupon, Of Wall
| street. may drive magnificent equipage in the
Park, although he would never think of doing
loft hr hod Sc boat
ner, while his bootmaker foots it about the
Ramble. But next year things may tumble to
pieces in Wall street: Coupons horses may 60
to the block, and be displayed in the Park by
| the suddenly enriched artisan. Such things
often happen here, and therefore there cannot
be-no matter how much people may arrogate
to themselves-such thing as an aristocratic
class in this country. The mechanic who drives
his wife and children in hired buggy" feels
every bit as good as Mr.. Ledger Bonner with
his ten thousand dollar equipage. So the Park
drives will present more varied and homo
geneous aspect than those of London and Paris.
Socially, people will be brought more nearly
| to each other than they can be upon a dusty
road, where there are no regulations as to the
other words, when people find themselves in
good company, on quiet and well regulated
park promenade, the fastest man will be sub
dued, and will drive like gentleman, not
jockey.
There will be, OF course, great deal of
| rivalry in equipages, just as the women rival
| each other in dress; but all this tends to help
oil fhn Do r., sc
| riages New York has wonderfully progressed
during the past ten years; but that is nothing
! to the effect Of the Park on the carriage bust
ness during the next decade.
Equestrianism, too, will be great feature in
| the Park. The value of such exercise to pro-
fessional men and persons of sedentary habits,
and its real enjoyment, are universally acknow-
| lodged; but until the Park was opened there
| has been no proper place for horseback riding
Now the number of equestrians to be seen in
| the Park is over fifty every morning, and the
| present difficulty is a lack of properly trained
saddle horses This want will soon be RENE
| died, and we understand that movement is
now on foot for the opening of stables exclu-
sively for the sale ard hire of good horses for
the saddle Clubs Of equestrians Of both sexes
are also suggested, and will doubtless be
formed during the coming spring.
7! The moral influences of the Park are so
closely connected with its social, sanitary and
artistic aspects that the one cannot be logically
| separated from the other. All classes will be
| benefited by it, according to the good old
classical maxim, a sound mind in sound
body; but its greatest work is to be done
| among the degraded and imbrutifed young
men and boys who form the underground
population of the city. Shut up in cellars or
noisome tenant houses, they have no resource
but the low grogshop, where alcoholic poison
soon obliterates all the natural good feeling
they ever had makeS them rnXdies and hrnis-