The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-07-04
MUSIC IN THE PARK.
Alex E. Sweet, in Texas siftings.l


 with the masses to hear good music. No admission charged. It is astonishing what cranlzs the American people are about music when it doesn't cost any thing.
 Besides the park commissioners and myself, there were some great men in the park. Shakespeare is there all the time, and so is Burns. They gre statues. Some of them wear tablecloths. Burns is mixed up with tablecloth, and is gazing up at the trees. Sykes says the table cloth is drapery. suppose Burns had just had dinner and got mixed up with the tablecleth. Burns drank wine for dinner when he could get it. Walter Scott is also wrestling with some drspery. Sykes said that didn't know anything about art, when told him that never knew that poets wore tablecloths in pub lie places like Central park. It does not cost anything to see the statuary. It is cheap statuary.
 The Seventh regiment band, although the pavilion. How childish! There is Beethoven on bust in the background near the Casino restaurant, where you can get beer. Anybody can get on bust if he has beer enough. Twenty-Five cents a bottle, also ice cream. Pavilion full of musicians. Don't know what musicians are full of. Melody, probably.
 Big crowd. Immense mob. Sykes says sometimes there are 40 900 people in Central park, in spite of the malarious ru- mors about the place being unhealthy.
 Musicians are getting ready to toot. Around the pavilion is an open space, partially closed in by benches full of peo- pie. Two gray-coated policemen, who look like confederate generals did during the war, walk up and down, and allow nobody but their frier ds to come inside All the seats are filled. Policemen push back the crowd.
 Sykes and myself ge. seat at the cor ner of bench. Servant girl with baby wants seat. She smiles at policeman, evidently not the first time, for he smiles back pleasantly.
 N. B.-I did not know a New York po- lceman could smile pleasantly outside of bar-room. Ask Sykes about it. Sykes says: 70, some of the policemen are clever fellers." Sykes says he never has any trouble with them. He always calls them colonel" and after that they al- ways take off their hats te him.
 Policeman winks at servant girl. Thou sands of people want seats and can't get them unless they are servant girls who know policemen. Policeman goes to two little boys who are seated on a bench. He says to boys
 "Little b'yes, don't you want to go out Ou the grass and play tag9"
 Little boys refuse to coincide. They say they gre very comfortable where they are.
 "Get ont, ye little divils," and chasing them out with his club, he conducts the servant girl to the vacant seats.
 Baby yells so we can't hear the band. strong as that of baby, in proportion to the size, there would be no use for tele- phones. Agree with him. Policeman shoves back the crowd and knocks down three dudes. Music by the band. Also music by the baby. Big policeman looks fierce. l ask Sykes # he thinks it possi- ble that the policeman was once baby, and wore short clothes. Sykes tells ma to keep quiet Man with a wooden leg, who has to stand up, says he wishes he was servant girl with baby, then, per haps he could get a seat.
 Whewl How hot it isl Sun is very disagreeable. Sykes says that is because it is Sunday.
 N. B.-Sykes is humorist. Tell him to start a paper with that joke. He says that while he is humorist, he is not a fool. Rough on me.
 Ask Sykes if the band plays after dark. Sykes says: 70, yes, oft in the stillv night" Why don't Sykes start a paper, then people would not have to suffer from his jokes unless they bought tho paper.
 Policeman says to three little boys on Q bench:
 @Little b'yes, there is room over there to play tag on tho grass" Little boys can't sec it. Policeman says:
 Get out, ye little divils," and chases them out with his club. Wonder if he has got another servant girl staked out. No, it is fat old woman. She looks like water tank at railroad station, on wheels. She takes up all the space on the bench that was occupied by the three little boys, and some of her is roosting on consumptive Israelite on one side and a bow-legged dude on the other. Ask Sykes who she is that policeman is so polite to her. Sykes replies that she is either the wife of an alderman or else she is the policeman's mother-in-law. Sykes is married man. The woman has a good deal of weight, judging by the look of agony on the face of the crushed dude.
 Band plays "l will sing of Thy great mercies," by Mendelssohn. The baby simultaneously warbles a solo on its mouth. A foreigner in the band springs 3 solo on the public with a young flute. On the programme it's called piccolo solo, \! cannot sing the old song" Of course he can't sing the old song and play the young flute at the same time. King David was the only man who could play on the Jews harp and sing at the same time. David was Jew, and, of course, his harp was Jew's-harp. Bible, revised edition, says he sang and played his harp before the ark. Don't believe it, kk~ Al