New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-06-10
THE CENTRAL PARK.

The controversy respecting the management
of the Central Park will not be without its
uses, whatever may be the ultimate judgment
of the public upon alleged scandals anu
wrongs. The Park is the most Thoroughly
public piece of property which we. as mu-
nicipality, possess. As source OF the
most refined enjoyment, as an invaluable
auxiliary in the preservation OF health
"a means of creating and regulating
the public health it is worth more
than it has cost us great as the cost mas
been. The very first requisition, however IL
it is to fulfill the idea OF its original estaD-
lshment, is that it should have Thoroughly
good reputation. SO sensitive is society upon
this point, that it would be very easy to drive
away from our chief pleasWe-ground all re-
spectable pleasure seekers, and to make 1t
merely the resort of the ill-cOnditioned and
the ill-behaved. Nothing like such catas-
trophe has yet been so much as APP
preached but it is well that the public
should understand the danger, and should
insist upon the most thoroughly efficient po-
lice regulations This is a matter IN which
the expenditure of money, within the reason
able bounds of iudciOus economy, is OF no
consequence, because without the perfect pres
ervation of law and order and decency within
the Park limits, it would be better to cover
these beautiful grounds with bricks and NOR
tar, and to turn these pleasant alleys into
dusty thoroughfares for man and beast. The
Park should be as safe for women and
children as private garden; all
its freduenters should be perfectly free
from all possible mOlestatiOn and annoyance
in every form. This is the memorable condi-
ton of the enjoyment of such place.
Park is a place for the refined, or for those
who are capable of becoming so through its
influences. 1t may degenerate into something
entirely different and infinitely bad. Unruly
people may be kept upon their good behavior;
but it can be done in only one way. They
must comprehend that sufficient police force
is at hand to detect Offenses against decorum,
and to expel or arrest offenders. They
must be made to know that the rules govern
ing the grounds will be rigidly enforced. This
is a kind of knowledge which the evil-dis-
posed will soon arrive at, and when they have
done so the work of the Park Police will be-
come comparatively easy one.
For some time the Park has been practically
without a head. The old Commission is re-
firing from the scene; the new one has not yet
taken its place. If there has been any dis
organization of the force in cOnsequence-and
we do not know that there has-it Is only
what We might have reasonably expected.
But it is surely high time for the Board to be
put In complete working order, and for the
policy that is to rule this important depart
ment of the city government to be distinctly
laid down. Mr.. Olmsted has referred, in one
of his letters to THE TRIBUNE, to marked
change for the worse in the zeal and
efficiency of the police and the behavior
of the public. He does not state the
reason for this change; but we all understand
it, If the keepers have grown negligent and
insubordinate, it is because under the rule of
the Ring they have been gradually taught
that political service is the best title to the
favor of their superors, in the Park as well
as in other branches of the administration;
and if the public has become less orderly than
it used to be, that is because the supervision
of the police has been relaxed. A reform here
is imperative, and fortunately with a little
vigorous and intelligent action by the Com
missioners it will prove easy.
One thing the recent discussion in our col
umns has made clear: the Park ought to be
closed at night. 1t is utterly impossible, with
any force of keepers, to insure that it shall be
orderly after dark. As a pleasure ground it
has no use except by daylight, and it is for
pleasure ground only that it has been created.
1t ia not designed for thoroughfare and the
belated travellers who drive through it now by
night, on the way to or from Harlem and the
Westchester towns ought to take to the ave-
nueS,