The New York herald., 1873-10-03
The Roads and the Races-Thc Com
dition or Our Uptown Drives.

The Roads and the Races-Thc Com
dition or Our Uptown Drives.
The races at Jerome Park commence to-
morrow, and the thousands of our citizens
who are certain to visit the famous track viii
have an opportunity to notice the condition to
which the parsimony and jealousy Of the
Finance Department has reduced our once
pleasant roads, boulovards and avenues in the
upper part of the city. The superstructure OF
these macadamized roadways, OF which New
York has right to be proud, was constructed
at cost of at least two million dollars, and,
through the ruinous policy of cutting down
the necessary appropriation for their main-
tenance, the benefit of the outlay is being
rapidly sacrificed. When the estimates
of the Department of Public Works
the maintenance of these roads was,
without any better reason than mere caprice,
reduced ten thousand dollars. The INSULT
cient sum appropriated for the purpose was
exhausted last month, at season of the year
when the roads suffer the most from neglect.
The maintenance force has been suspended
since the 9Th Of September the roadways
have already suffered considerable damage
through the want of the usual care, and if
means are not speedily supplied for the re-
sumption of the labor, the first frost of the
season will come and the destruction will be
much greater
1t is in harmony with the singular financial
policy of the Comptroller to allow two millions
worth of public property to so to ruin in order
to save the immediate expenditure of few
thousands, especially when the money is to be
expended by authorities distasteful to the head
of the Finance Department. But the Comp
troller is not the only member of the
Board of Estimate and Apportionment, and
his associates on that Board make themselves
responsible for his nggardly and stupid policy
when they fail to insist upon o sufficient ap-
preparation for the maintenance of our splen-
did uptown roads and for the protection of
two million dollars worth of public property
The Public Works Department has already
made three or four earnest appeals to the
Board Of Appropriation for an additional sum
of twenty-five thousand for these purposes
and from the proceedings of the Board it
seems that no notice has been taken of the
application. If any charge of extravaganza
could be sustained in regard to the care and
repair Of the roads there might be some ex-
cuse for this captious Withholding of the funds
required for a work of great public impor-
tance but when we examine the total esti-
mates for the maintenance of the Boule-
wards we find them to be much less
than similar work has heretofore cost
under professedly honest and economical
management In 1867 Mr. Green, as Com
missioner of Central Park, expended over
sixty-one thousand dollars on the care of two
hundred and forty thousand square yards of
Park roadways, while the Department of Pub
lie Works asks only sixty-fve thousand dollars
in all, including the twenty five thousand now
required, for the maintenance Of more than
five hundred thousand square yards of road
way.
The Board of Apportionment should act
promptly in this matter. Complaints of the
bad condition of the uptown roads flow in
from all quarters. The Kingsbridge road,
out Of repair but in a dangerous condition,
and much work is required on the side roads
to put them in proper order AS to the
boulevards and avenues, not only are they
threatened with serious damage from the
parsimoniousness or criminal indifference
Of the Board, but the scrub-woman
polity of the Comptroller prevents the sprin-
king Of the roads and smothers the pleasure
of driving in cloud of dust If the Board
refuses any longer to act on the requisition
for the sum necessary to properly maintain
the uptown roads the Commissioner of Public
Works should employ the necessary help on
his own responsibility and send the gangs to
the Finance Department for their pay. 1t is
his duty to protect the property of the city
placed under his official guardianship, He
should also make provision for sprinklng the
roads on the days of the races, at least, and
the people will know that they owe pleasant
drive to his department. 1t is about time that
our public officers should show the Comp
troller that they have public duties and respon-
sibilities with which he has no right to inter-
fere, and which they are resolved to discharge,
despite all the distractions which obstinacy,
jealousy or stupidity may seek to place in their
way
Central Asia-Another Devastating War.
We print this morning despatch, special
to the HERALD, dated Tashkend September 10,
to the effect that another great war has broken
out in Central Asia. The state of affairs in
Turkestan seems to be strangely, even wildly,
confused In Khokan, one of the three Khanates