FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT. 47 



weather, and that the administrative machinery of the Park 

 could be tested during the winter, when visitors were fewest. 



Judging from five months' practical operation, there is rea- 

 son to believe that, with adequate appropriations, the system now 

 well established will yield reasonably good results, even under 

 the severe test of midsummer throngs of visitors. 



ADMINISTRATION. 



The complex and diversified character of the Society's work 

 in the Zoological Park, both in construction and in the care of 

 collections of living animals, rendered the formation of its work- 

 ing force a task of unusual difficulty and perplexity. The first 

 portion of this task consisted in assembling a force of nearly 

 one hundred men for duty as mechanics of various kinds, and 

 laborers. All these men, being engaged upon construction work, 

 were necessarily considered temporary employees, and, as work 

 was finished in their various lines, they were dispensed with. 

 For the maintenance of the Park, however, it was necessary to 

 select most carefully a certain number of experienced and com- 

 petent men to be placed in charge of the various departments 

 into which the work would necessarily be divided, and to pro- 

 vide each of them wuth a force of competent assistants. The 

 fact that every person placed on the maintenance force was ex- 

 pected to become a permanent employee rendered it necessary 

 to exercise unusual care in their selection. 



At the outset of its work in the Zoological Park the Society 

 adopted the policy of employing none but competent and re- 

 liable men, who were not addicted to the drinking habit. That 

 portion of the Society's agreement with the City which required 

 that all persons employed in the Zoological Park should be se- 

 lected solely by reason of their special fitness and ability was, in 

 every case, most strictly observed. So thoroughly has this prin- 

 ciple been carried out, that not a single person now employed on 

 the Park force owes his position to the personal influence or 

 friendship of any member of the Executive Committee, or Board 

 of Managers, or any other person prominently connected with 

 the Zoological Society. The force contains not one " favorite," 

 but every person occupying a place in it owes his position solely 

 to his own merits and his ability to satisfactorily perform the 

 service for which he was engaged. 



