TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT 67 



down to $150,000 with a resounding crash in sahiries of eighteen 

 per cent, loss ; and then, in response to a frantic appeal in behalf 

 of our impoverished men, we were given back $15,000, solely for 

 the purpose of increasing the salaries of our force by that amount 

 over and above what those salaries ivere before they tvere 

 reduced! 



It being utterly impossible to carry on during 1919 with 

 only $190,000, the Society addressed itself to the task of making 

 up a shortage $32,000, thus: 



By passing the hat through the Board of 



Managers $18,000 



By leaving positions vacant, and by dropping 

 every employee who could possibly be 

 spared 10,000 



By stripping the Animal Fund 4,000 



Total $32,000 



This unhappy program was carried out. There was nothing 

 else to be done. We kept up to the mark all those portions of the 

 Park that are most in the public eye, and by the rest of it we 

 merely did the best we could. 



'' In 1919 the end of the war enabled the city government to 

 adjust institutional finances on a better basis. We asked for 

 $242,000, we received $237,000, and the Society is making up the 

 difference. 



Our employees whose salaries are under $1,200 per year 

 receive for 1920 the universal horizontal increase of twenty per 

 cent., and those getting from $1,200 to $1,900 receive fifteen 

 per cent, more, and all those (all except the Director) above 

 $1,900 receive ten per cent. more. But even this left our officers 

 and Chief Clerk so poorly paid that from its own funds the So- 

 ciety must provide for an additional ten per cent, increase, to 

 give them two-thirds of the salaries paid to curators in the simi- 

 lar institutions. 



As usual, the repairs made to the Park buildings, walks and 

 other improvements were paid for wholly out of moneys that be- 

 longed by right to the Animal Fund, and the same course must 

 be pursued in 1920. 



