The thorough government of the work, and the general efficiency of its direction, are indicated by the remarkable good order and absence of “accidents” which have characterized it.  See p. 64 of Annual Report, 1860.  For some particulars of cost, see pp. 61, 62, of same Report.]

In all European parks, there is more or less land the only use of which is to give a greater length to the roads which pass around it,—­it being out of sight, and, in American phrase, unimproved.  There is not an acre of land in Central Park, which, if not wanted for Park purposes, would not sell for at least as much as the land surrounding the Park and beyond its limits,—­that is to say, for at least $60,000, the legal annual interest of which is $4,200.  This would be the ratio of the annual waste of property in the case of any land not put to use; but, in elaborating the plan, care has been taken that no part of the Park should be without its special advantages, attractions, or valuable uses, and that these should as far as possible be made immediately available to the public.

The comprehensiveness of purpose and the variety of detail of the plan far exceed those of any other park in the world, and have involved, and continue to involve, a greater amount of study and invention than has ever before been given to a park.  A consideration of this should enforce an unusually careful method of maintenance, both in the gardening and police departments.  Sweeping with a broom of brush-wood once a week is well enough for a hovel; but the floors of a palace must needs be daily waxed and polished, to justify their original cost.  We are unused to thorough gardening in this country.  There are not in all the United States a dozen lawns or grass-plots so well kept as the majority of tradesmen’s door-yards in England or Holland.  Few of our citizens have ever seen a really well-kept ground.  During the last summer, much of the Park was in a state of which the Superintendent professed himself to be ashamed; but it caused not the slightest comment with the public, so far as we heard.  As nearly all men in office, who have not a personal taste to satisfy, are well content, if they succeed in satisfying the public, we fear the Superintendent will be forced to “economize” on the keeping of the Park, as he was the past year, to a degree which will be as far from true economy as the cleaning of mosaic floors with birch brooms.  The Park is laid out in a manner which assumes and requires cleanly and orderly habits in those who use it; much of its good quality will be lost, if it be not very neatly kept; and such negligence in the keeping will tend to negligence in the using.

In the plan, there is taken for granted a generally good inclination, a cleanly, temperate, orderly disposition, on the part of the public which is to frequent the Park, and finally to be the governors of its keeping, and a good, well-disposed, and well-disciplined police force, who would, in spite of “the inabilities of a republic,” adequately control the cases exceptional to the assumed general good habits of that public,—­at the same time neglecting no precaution to facilitate the convenient enforcement of the laws, and reduce the temptation to disorderly practices to a minimum.