LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE. 



central business marts, can afford the time or the means 

 to go with his family to those distant gardens. That this 

 assertion is not a mere theory, is proved by the following 

 extracts from the report of the Central Park Commis- 

 sioners for the year 1872, which has come to hand since 

 the above was written : 



" That large part of the people of the city to whom, 

 from the closer quarters in which they are most of the 

 time confined, the Park would seem to promise the great- 

 est advantage, cannot ordinarily leave their daily tasks, at 

 the earliest, till after four o'clock ; nor their homes, which 

 in the majority of cases are yet south of Twenty-fifth 

 street, before five. A visit to the Park, then, involves 

 two trips by street cars, which with the walk to and from 

 them will occupy more than an hour. The street cars 

 on all the lines approaching the Park are at five o'clock 

 overcrowded, and most members of a family entering one 

 below Twenty-fifth street will be unable to get a seat. 

 Under these circumstances, the pleasure of a short visit 

 to the Park, especially in the latter part of a hot 

 summer's day, does not often compensate for the fatigue 

 and discomfort it involves, and accordingly it appears 

 that as yet a majority of those who FREQUENT the Park 

 are people in comfortable circumstances, and largely of 

 families, the heads of which have either retired from 

 business or are able to leave their business early in the 

 day. Except on Sunday, and Saturday afternoons and 

 general holidays, the number of residents of the city who 

 come to the Park in carriages is larger than of those who 

 come by street cars and on foot." 



