The Xciu York Park 381 



population of five hundred thousand souls is always there, 

 always on the increase. Every ship brings a live cargo 

 from over-peopled Europe, to fill up its over-crowded lodging 

 houses; every steamer brings hundreds of strangers to fill 

 its thronged thoroughfares. Crowded hotels, crowded 

 streets, hot summers, business pursued till it becomes a 

 game of excitement, pleasure followed till its votaries are 

 exhausted, where is the quiet reverse side of this picture of 

 town life, intensified almost to distraction? 



Mayor Kingsland spreads it out to the vision of the 

 dwellers in this arid desert of business and dissipation - - a 

 green oasis for the refreshment of the city's soul and body. 

 He tells the citizens of that feverish metropolis, as every 

 intelligent man will tell them who knows the cities of the 

 old world, that New York, and American cities generally, 

 are voluntarily and ignorantly living in a state of complete 

 forgetfulness of nature, and her innocent recreations. That, 

 because it is needful in civilized life for men to live in cities, 

 - yes, and unfortunately too, for children to be born and 

 educated without a daily sight of the blessed horizon, - - it 

 is not, therefore, needful for them to be so miserly as to live 

 utterly divorced from all pleasant and healthful intercourse 

 with gardens, and green fields. He informs them that cool 

 umbrageous groves have not forsworn themselves within 

 town limits, and that half a million of people have a right 

 to ask for the greatest happiness of parks and pleasure 

 grounds, as well as for paving stones and gas lights. 



Now that public opinion has fairly settled that a park is 

 necessary, the parsimonious declare that the plot of one 

 hundred and sixty acres proposed by Mayor Kingsland is ex- 

 travagantly large. Shortsighted economists! If the future 

 growth of the city were confined to the boundaries their 

 narrow vision would fix, it would soon cease to be the com- 

 mercial emporium of the country. If they were the pur- 

 veyors of the young giant, he would soon present the sorry 

 spectacle of a robust youth magnificently developed but 

 whose cxlremeties had outgrown every garment that they 

 had provided to cover his nakedness. 



