23 



of the expenditure, and with an uncertainty as to the par- 

 ticular amount which would be required for the purpose, 

 the Board having up to that time no specific data upon 

 which to base their estimate. But experience has shown 

 that their former estimate of the expense of maintaining 

 the Parks was too low, and that for the future the amount 

 which will be required to be raised for maintenance will 

 not be less than the whole sum authorized by law to be 

 expended on this account. 



It will be observed, also, that the fund for the construc- 

 tion of Prospect Park has now reached the limit assigned 

 to it by the law of 1868, and as an application must be 

 made to the Legislature for additional means with which to 

 finish this Park, it may not be improper to glance at the 

 history of past legislation, as connected therewith. The 

 law of 1860, which organized the first Board of Commis- 

 sioners and gave form and feature to the original Park en- 

 terprise of our City, directed that no plan for the improve- 

 ment of the land thereby placed under their charge should 

 be adopted or undertaken, of which the entire expense 

 when funded would require for the payment of its annual in- 

 terest a greater sum than $30,000 per annum. This amount 

 was slightly modified by the amended Act of the next year, 

 which limited the cost of improvement to $500,000, and 

 was adapted to the simple and inexpensive style of improve- 

 ment originally suggested for this Park. The restriction, 

 of course, applied only to the comparatively small portions 

 of land lying in the vicinity of Flatbush Avenue, as con- 

 templated by the Act of 1860, and had no reference to the 

 enlarged Park which was subsequently placed under the 

 charge of the reorganized Board. In their first expendi- 

 tures of money the Commissioners confined themselves to 

 this amount so long as they were operating upon land 

 within the original Park boundaries; but by the Act of 



