66 NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY 
rubbish-throwers and the lawless at 25 per cent., and another 
at not less than 50 per cent. of the whole population. 
We reluctantly confess our belief that 10 per cent. was too 
low an estimate for the grand army of rubbish throwers, spit- 
ters, thieves and assassins of New York! 
Another curious feature of our campaign was the very sym- 
pathetic interest that it aroused in other cities, in the eastern 
area bounded by New Orleans, Chicago, Detroit and Boston. 
So far from being satisfied that conditions elsewhere are better 
than in New York, all outside newspaper comment deplored the 
existence of similar conditions at home. One newspaper pub- 
lished a considerable distance from us, declared that it is not to 
be lightly conceded that lawlessness in New York is any worse 
than it is in a certain other American city. 
Judging from wide newspaper comment, it seems to be a 
fact that many other cities which strive to be clean and beautiful 
are cursed by the same devilish spirit of “personal liberty” to 
be dirty and make dirt that we complain of in Greater New 
York. It is an incontestable fact that the ridiculous excess of 
personal freedom and immunity from regulation that this repub- 
lic has most mistakenly bestowed upon its own people, and equal- 
ly so upon a vast horde of unappreciative and ungrateful low- 
class aliens, has now become a curse to this country. What is 
even worse, the evil effects of this mistake are multiplying at 
a frightful rate. We are sowing dragons teeth that presently 
may tear our vitals asunder. 
One of the encouraging incidents of our campaign for clean- 
liness concerned a disorderly feature that by many persons once 
was regarded as impossible to correct. I refer to the curse of 
peanut shells that up to May 1, 1915, fearfully disfigured miles 
of walks and lawn borders in the Zoological Park. When our 
effort against this evil was in contemplation, there were many 
persons who warned us not to attempt to reform the status of 
the peanut. It was feared that any serious effort in that direc- 
tion would arouse an amount of ridicule that would be fatal. 
But the evil was intolerable, and it had to be corrected. 
Strange to say, in the face of rules, arrests, summonses and 
fines in court, the peanut shells disappeared as if by magic! 
During 1916, they were, in effect, totally absent! And not a 
word of ridicule was bestowed upon our effort. 
