The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-08-07
CENTRAL PARK PRIVILEGES.
People Who Are Granted Permits Not
 Shared By the General Public.
tFrom the New York sun.l

The question of permits to Central
 park is one of interest to a far larger portion of the community than one who
 has not investigated the subject would
 suppose. These documents are issued by MT. Parsons, the superintendent of
 parks who has Jurisdiction over all the parks on Manhattan island. His office Is on the third floor of the arsenal and it's windows overlook the tank where the clumsy hippopotami flop and
 plunge about, to the unfailing amuse-
 ment of spectators. A permit clerk has a lot of business on his hands, and it is steadily increasing as the public real izes the value, both recreational and educational, of It's precious possession of public parks.
 The purposes for which permits are sought are chiefly tennis, croquet. cricket, photography, sketching, tricy- cling, picnicking, and in special cases researches In botany or entomology. The permits to botanists and entomolo- gists are as rule only granted to per- N.
 as the privileges are great and might easily be abused by the injudicious. gather flowers and plants for analysis, while the entomologist Is allowed to hunt bugs, butterflies, and beetles wherever he choses, and to collect as many specimens as fortune sends to ! his net or crawling or flying within his ken and reach.
 The sketching privileges are not so freely extended as formerly. It is now necessary for the applicant to show a letter from his or her instructor or a card of membership in some art school, | class or club, or some similar voucher
 that the permit is really desired for the ! purpose of art work. This became a | necessity from the fact that numbers | of men and women obtained permits l 'to sketch" and used them merely to ward off interference on the part of the ! police, who found them lounging about | without making the slightest pretense of work, and when the grey-coated guardians objected then they would flourish a permit to sketch, allege that l they were resting" and that had to
 close the argument.
 l Eight hundred and sixty-eight per-
 mits to sketch and to photograph are | now out, They are good for one year. | This season 1075 permits have been is-
 sued for tennis and 700 for croquet | Eight cricket clubs hold the privilege 1 of the cricket ground. They are as fol | lows: The Harlem, New York, Metro | politan, Bermuda, Carlaw, Columbia | (not belonging to Columbia college), the Elm and the Caribbean, a club of
 negroes. Permits for tricycling were designed to insure for each child some
 adult guardian to see that the young ster doesn't come to grief or injure any
 one else. These permits are also re- quired in the other parks and squares of the city
 l The majority of all who benefit by park permits of every sort are the little l merrymakers of the May parties. They | assemble on the Saturday of that month
 an the first two or three Saturday in
 June, and swarm over the dozen or
 more places assigned to such gather | ings. May party permits are duly | issued for one day, and are not re
 corded on the book nor tabulated. A
 memorandum of the number of children
 comprising each group for which per
 mission is given is jotted down below 1 the date, however, and the string is l so long that 1t should roll up with a
 spring, like tape measure. The per.
 init clerk said that 10000 to 25,000 May
 party permits would be a safe estimate | for this season. Of course that compu-
 tation implies a much greater number of children.
 A set of cnmnrehensiva conditions