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before hand the advantages to be derived from it. For 

 these very reasons, it devolves, as a public duty on those 

 who are enlightened enough to see and magnanimous 

 enough to act, to undertake such a design even in spite of 

 t lie apathy or opposition of many good men. The reward 

 for such a course will be found in the assurance that these 

 labors will be honored and appreciated after their results are 

 witnessed. The very mouths that will now cry out against 

 a city park, will when it is provided, be the loudest to 

 award credit to those who did them a good in spite of them- 

 selves. It was precisely such an experience that those en- 

 countered who projected and executed the city water works 

 of Albany. Men protested against the work as unneces- 

 sary.- There was water enough. There were good wells, 

 which the city fathers had dug. There was a stone reser- 

 voir already in Eagle street. There was the river, not likely 

 soon to go dry. Careful and economical men who did not 

 look to the future growth and wants of the city, abused 

 and protested. But the work was done. A great fire which 

 consumed a large portion of the city perhaps may be cre- 

 dited fordoing something to convince the public mind that 

 pumps can not be depended on to supply a city with water. 



The magnificent Central Park of New York was under- 

 taken in the face of just such an opposition. And vet, now 

 that the work is fairly initiated, and some of the results be- 

 gin to show themselves, nobody opposes the most liberal 

 and generous provision for carrying out the designs of the 

 Park Commissioners. 



I repeat then that it devolves upon those who appreciate 

 the necessity of providing a park adequate to the present 

 and future yants of this city, to initiate the enterprise even 

 in spite of the neglect or opposition of those who are to be 

 chiefly benefitted. 



City governments almost always labor under great disad- 

 vantages in securing, when it becomes necessary, grounds 

 sufficiently extensive for public parks. In the early settle- 



