The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-10-01
scRuBR1NG THE sTAUEs.
Some of the Discoveries Made by the
 Scrubbers.

Some of the Discoveries Made py the Serubbers.
 Some curious discoveries have been made by the worlSmen of the park de- pertinent who have been engaged for four months in cleaning the bronze statues. through the parks in Man haitian. The work was started in May at the suggestion of F. Edwin Elwell, curator of the department of statuary of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, by whom the job of overhauling and scrub ping up the bronzes has been personally directed. -.s s.s ... According to MT. Elwell. bushels of. filth and rubbish have been removed l from the statues already attached. ihe 1 list of things found in the bronzes ranges from cigar butts, hairrins and hatDtns to birds nests and the remains of the lunches of the subway workers. | The largest accumulation or dirt re- moved from a single one was taken off that of Sir Walter Scott in the Mall in Central Park. Nearly half a bushel of rubbish and dirt, including two robbins nests. was found in the crevices or the statue. The nests had been built in the cavities formed by the fold of the novel; ist's draperies just behind the left leg. I After clearing away the rubbish the cleaners scrubbed the statue with fibre 1 brushes and water and gave the shoe which had been befouled by the birds the first shine it had had in thirty-one years.
 After clearing away the rubbish the
 cleaners scrubbed the statue with fibre brushes and water and gave the shoe
 which had been befouled by the birds the first shine 1t had had in thirty-one years.
 Birds nests have been found also in
 convenient little crevices in many of the other statues They have not given I the, cleaners nearly so much trouble
 though, as the nests of wasps and other insects. The Indian Hunter the well known statue by J. Q. A. Ward in Gen. I tral Park, just west of the Mall, was 2
 favorite place for large colonies of the
 municipality's wasps. The mud tene-
 ments of these strenuous little insects
 were plastered thickly over the surface
 both of the hunter and the dog in the
 group. In the corner of one of the eyes , of the men, and also in one of the dog { le eyes, there were wasps nests, giving the lman a decided suuint and the dog 3 very droll appearance.
 On the stone bases of the statues SC far cleaned the workmen have found
 large numbers of old cocons of gyps,
 moths and from some of the figure!
 they have had great difficulty in remov , ing them. This was particularly tn
 case with the statue of the Eagles il
 Central Park near the Mall. Thous
 ands of the moth were found there ant
 the workmen spent several days in get . ting the statue clear of them.
 Il From Fesquent's statue of Commerc l at Fifty-ninth street and the Circl the cleaners gathered large quantitie of cigar butts ainumber of spikes.
 hose coupling and many twigs ani leaves. The cigar butts have probabi. : been contributed through several year [ by cab drivers as they drove by. Tn : statue was also much defaced by Dir { lime. The cleaners also removed q lc , of lime from the left side of sunoI ] statue of Columbus in the Maj. Tn lime extended from the top of the coa to the bottom, and lit had been remove
 Mir Elwell says ittwould have made : mark that would have remained fe !. years.
 E The base of the eanstrian statue ( 7 Washington in Union Square Wa covered with blotches of tar which Cur
 ator Elwell says were left there by tn z subway contratctors. In several place ], initials had been marked in the bas ! with tar. This statue, and also that { f. Lincoln, MT. Elwell says, was very bad ly treated by the subway workers, H z characterizes the treatment of th ' Washington statue as particular : shameful.