I have received your suggestion that music should be provided by the city upon the park. The chief objection which occurs to me is that if an appropriation should be made for the purpose by the Council, there would be embarrassing conditions attached to it—that at least members of the Council would think themselves entitled to advise as to the manner in which the money should be used, the choice and pay of the band or of individual performers, the time & place of the performances and the arrangements for the audiences, the selection of music &c., and that, with the multitude of advisers, not generally well-qualified, it would be difficult to sustain that character in the concerts which I deem essential without placing myself in undesirable relations with the Common Council.

I am the more apprehensive of this from some experience last year, when certain members of the Council Board kindly proposed to urge an appropriation. As soon as we came to a discussion of particulars, they urged such changes of my arrangements as led us to prefer that the plan should be dropped.