TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT 105 
police officers, which is unavoidable under any police system 
like the present, is a great handicap on the protection of parks. 
The lack of fixed individual responsibility seems to constitute a 
great loss of power and efficiency. 
After long and careful deliberation, led by the initiative of 
Mr. Joseph P. Hennessy, Park Commissioner of Bronx Bor- 
ough, the members of the Park Board unanimously reached the 
conclusion that the situation now demands a force of special 
park policemen, chosen with special reference to their effective- 
ness in park protection, and maintained under the direction of 
the Board of Parks. The present force of policemen being 
already too small for the needs of greater New York, the special 
park force is proposed as an increase, and not as a subtraction 
from the regular force. 
This plan has the hearty approval and support of the Zoolog- 
ical Society. It is, in effect, the principle for which we long have 
striven, and once enjoyed for six years, in the form of special 
permanent details of policemen to daily duty in our Park. Hav- 
ing seen the great benefits and economies of this plan, the 
Society’s support of it is based on experience, not theory. 
The tendency toward vandalism in public parks is too well 
known to require description here and it is morally wrong to 
permit the children of New York to think that in a public park 
any hoodlum can commit rubbish nuisances and go unpunished. 
Of all places in America, the grip of the Law needs to be the firm- 
est in New York City. 
Most sincerely do we hope that for the good of this great 
city the Board of Park Commissioners will persevere in their 
campaign for a force of special park policemen, and that every 
good citizen of New York will do everything possible to aid 
that movement. 
CONCLUSION. 
Like many other institutions and industries, the mainte- 
nance of the Zoological Park is hampered by the universal short- 
age of skilled labor. We now are facing a program of repair 
work that is scarcely less than appaling. Mr. Merkel’s long list 
of tasks is not exaggerated for the sake of dramatic effect. 
