MORE BONDS AND “HIGH FINANCE” 14? 
West Newark (West Side)........ “3 75,000 
Total: sawicye wine Actwatewcun xe ese /eseaes $2,058,000 
Approximate estimates of park improvements suggested 
for early construction : 
Branch Brook improvements from 
Sussex avenue to Old Bloomfield 
TOA oie aes eee tee cd eis ecbacaue eas edo $350,000 
East Side Park. ...... 0.00.0 cce ue aes 40,000 
Weequahic Park ................... 25,000 
Eagle Rock Reservation............. 25,000 
Triangle Park, Orange.............. 25,000 
West Newark Parks................ 25,000 
ROUAL 355 Bir. xt cei arcades hone o $490,000 
As will be seen from these figures, they represented a 
total actual and estimated expenditure of $2,548,000, from 
an appropriation made but the year previous “for a system 
of parks in its entirety” of $2,500,000. This, notwithstand- 
ing the conservative estimates for the cost of the remaining 
land yet unacquired in the different parks, and the ex- 
tremely limited amounts noted for improvements in those 
parks, other than in Branch Brook, where contracts were 
made and improvement work was already well under way. 
THE FINANCIAL SITUATION. 
Although the subject of the impending dificiency was not 
referred to in the first official report of the commission for 
1896, issued early in 1897, it became well understood in 
the park board room that there would be. no object in longer 
“executive sessioning” the fact from the public. As Com- 
missioner Franklin Murphy had been the most active and 
outspoken exponent of the sectional policy adopted in ac- 
quiring the various parks, he was delegated by his colleagues 
to convey in his own way the financial situation in the 
board’s affairs to the public. This was done, and I think 
the first intimel! n the people had of that matter was ob- 
