FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT. 39 



approval of the Park Commissioner of the Bronx, and $60,000 

 was the amount of the maintenance fund named by the Park De- 

 partment in its appHcation for the Park for 1900. In the general 

 cutting down of the appropriation, the amount finally allowed the 

 Society was only $40,000. 



This amount is totally inadequate to provide for the mainten- 

 ance of the Park during the current year on its present basis, even 

 without allowance for the constantly increasing number of ani- 

 mals and the additional force required to manage the increasing 

 crowds of visitors. Five thousand dollars per month is the very 

 lowest amount that can possibly serve to maintain the Park at 

 present. Every item of expense has been cut to its lowest point, 

 the men employed in the Park are now overw^orked and under- 

 paid, in summer the present force will be quite inadequate, and 

 current expenses cannot be reduced any further. 



The Central Park jMenagerie receives $32,500, and the Aqua- 

 rium, with its single building and few employees, has $40,000, 

 although in these popular institutions neither of these amounts 

 is too large for the work done. It is obvious that the needs of a 

 Park of 261 acres — every acre of which requires constant care — 

 with 183,000 square feet of walks and roads already constructed, 

 with a requirement of sixty permanent employees, with six en- 

 trances, twenty-four buildings and other installations for animals, 

 all requiring continuous attention, and for several constant heat 

 during the winter months, cannot possibly be met by an expenditure 

 of $40,000 a year. 



It is probable that in a comparatively short time visitors to the 

 Zoological Park will be far more numerous in proportion to its 

 area than to Central Park, because people are attracted from all 

 parts of Greater New York. 



With the exception of this inadequate maintenance, which your 

 Committee feels was due to a m'sapprehension of the pressing 

 needs of the Park rather than to a lack of interest on the part of 

 the City authorities, your Committee desires to acknowledge the 

 co-operation of the various City officials, and the good-will shown 

 to the Park by the Mayor, the Comptroller, Corporation Counsel, 

 and especially the Hon. August Moebus, Park Commissioner for 

 the Borough of the Bronx, the Engineers, Messrs. Ulrich and 

 Schermerhorn, in charge of the City's w^ork at the Park, as well 

 as the official Landscape Architect of New York City, Mr. John 

 De Wolf. 



