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BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN 
LEAFLETS 
THE BROOKLYN INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 
Series II 
Brooklyn, N. Y., June 17, 1914 
Number 7 
VANDALISM TURNED TO ACCOUNT 
During the late summer of 1911 some visitors to the Garden 
took the trouble to girdle one of the birches growing near the shore 
of the lake. Whether this was done by adults or children, mali- 
ciously or thoughtlessly, it is not possible to say. 
There are two theories concerning public disregard for public 
property and for the ordinary rules of conduct, as embodied in 
regulations governing the use of public buildings and grounds. 
One theory is that misdemeanors are usually committed without 
motive, through ignorance or thoughtlessness, and that if people 
fully sensed the significance of their acts, or realized their own 
relation to public property — that they themselves are part of the 
public, and part owners of the property, and are, in reality, 
injuring themselves when they commit public nuisance — conduct 
would be regulated accordingly. 
Many people, for example, in walking by a shrub or hedge, 
will quite thoughtlessly pick a leaf that brushes against the 
hand, not stopping to consider that in a public park or garden, 
where one hundred to several hundred or even a thousand people 
pass daily, the shrub would be defoliated if all were equally 
thoughtless. 
While the above view is the charitable one to take, there are 
times when the facts are such as to make it almost impossible to 
hold such a view. If, for example, one takes the trouble to bring 
from some distance a large stone and to throw it with sufficient 
