New York, March 5, 1886. 



Present — Commissioners Marsh and Page. 



Appearances — Franklin Bartlett, Esq., for the City. 



Mr. Bartlett — May it please the Court : After many 

 months the claimants for awards in the Pelliam Bay 

 Park have finished their case. The hearing lias been 

 exhaustive, and your Honors have listened with un- 

 wearied patience ever since the 30th of January, 1885, 

 when we commenced to listen to the proofs of title and of 

 values which should be adduced by the land-owners and the 

 persons claiming the awards. It now becomes my duty 

 and my privilege to open the case for the City of New 

 York. I say privilege, for I consider it a privilege to 

 defend the interests of this great municipality in a case 

 which so largely affects the City Treasury and the tax- 

 payers upon whom the burden must ultimately 

 fall ; for in either event, whether these awards are paid for 

 by the issue of new bonds, or by the insertion of the 

 amounts of the judgments to be obtained in the City tax 

 levy, the burden must ultimately fall upon the taxpayers 

 at large. Our court of last resort-- the Court of Appeals 

 — has declared the New Park Act to be constitutional. 

 The only question, therefore, which remains to be solved 

 is that question, which your Honors will have to deter- 

 mine : What shall be paid for the lands taken ? This 

 question is one of great practical importance — it is one which 

 affects indirectly every resident of the City and County 

 of New York — it is one which affects directly every tax- 

 payer. Your Honors, as soon as you were organized, be- 

 came a Court, as was decided in the matter of the Niagara 

 Reservation, in which the distinguished presiding Com mis- 



