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PARK AND CEMETERY. 
Cincinnati’s Municipal Park Picnic 
THE WHEELBARROW RACE. 
THE WATPRIMELON EATING CONTEST. 
According to the authorities on matters 
of that sort it is altogether the biggest 
affair of the sort given on the Western 
Continent and, probalily, in the world ! 
Fancy asking all the girls and hoys of 
one of the largest cities in the country to 
a picnic, placing absolutely no restrictions 
as to whom they may bring with them, of 
how many such guests may be sent for 
from out the city, simply welcoming whom- 
soever might appear and bidding them take 
hand, forthwith, in the sport. This is what 
Cincinnati has done. 
On all the calendar of the year, down in 
the big city on the Ohio, there is no such 
gala day to young and their parents who 
come to look on, as the annual municipal 
picnic ! 
The municipal picnics in Cincinnati had 
their start almost through an accident. 
Just a few years ago, one glorious autumn, 
it happened that the public parks were par- 
ticularly radiant for that time of year, 
thanks to unusual amounts of rain. The 
Park Commissioners wdshed to show’ the 
parks to the people and chance helped 
them to the end. The reservoir in Eden 
Park, a huge, concrete basin, had been 
drained for repairs ; stood dry and open, 
and lured, as a huge dancing floor — the 
largest such the world has ever seen. A 
band could be mounted on one of the con- 
crete bastions, set in this as weight above 
the hidden mains: the floor could be swept 
clean and smoothed a bit, and there would 
he a dance hall al fresco, unlike any other 
in the world. 
Out of all of which came the plan for a 
big municipal picnic, open to every comer, 
with music, ice water, prizes for all con- 
tests, and sports of every imaginable sort. 
So successful was that first picnic that 
it has become an accepted annual institu- 
tion. 
Come to Eden Park — the largest of the 
parks in which the picnics are held on this 
day, and you need but follow the growing 
crowds to come on the picnic. All along 
the avenues, as you go, you meet men dis- 
tributing paper drinking-cups, gratis, that 
the takers may help themselves to the cold, 
refreshing water beyond. At intervals, 
other men have position at two huge cans 
of galvanized iron, w’ith such w’ater, and 
they pour a dipperful into the cup of 
whomsoever it may please. 
Denser and denser grow the crowds as 
you approach the reservoir, w'hence already 
the music of the dancing. You take an at- 
tractive, little tree-bordered lane at the 
side of the brink that you may look down 
into the mammoth bowl as you go. All 
along the top of the concrete walls of the 
reservoir, like so many Humpty Dumptys, 
children and adults are sitting, watching 
the merrymakers below. Other folk are 
taking a temporary, sloping stair to the 
bed of the reservoir, and, by and by, join 
in on the dance. At one place in the bot- 
tom you note the band on its bastion ; at 
another you remark the men giving ice 
water likewise ; at a third the park la- 
borers are clearing still more space to 
dance. Rut the dancing is only one fea- 
ture of this mammoth entertainment. 
Over the hills, where folk are picnicking 
merrily, you stroll to the permanent band- 
stand, where the prizes for the various 
contests are exposed. Everyone is free to 
enter into any contest ; people are out by 
the tens of thousands, and there are prizes 
galore Just for the children there are 
money-boxes, dolls, Charley Chaplin hats, 
baseball-bats, slates, games of endless 
sorts, whips, w’ee rakes and shovels ; a sin- 
gle table holds over l,0h0 prizes, gifts from 
the city’, every one of which is worth l-i to 
‘-'lie. and some of them come to quite con- 
siderably more. The Boy Scouts form a 
guard of honor to the prizes, while the 
crowds go up and dow'n, looking them 
over and resolving for just which they 
will compete. 
Across the road there's a fish-pond. Just 
as soon as there is room, you drop a line 
and angle for fish with numbers on their 
heads, and these numbers are added to 
make scores. The two highest scores in 
a given length of time win a first prize, 
the next ten, perhaps, second prizes ; and 
so on, in increasing ratios. 
Just a few paces on, in the more open 
EXHIBITING THE FRIZES. 
DANCING ON RESERVOIR FLOOR. 
