Under instructions of the Board, the Treasurer offers the following observations on so much of the police arrangements of the Department as pertain to the Central Park.

The Central Park is planned upon a motive which, in the very freedom it offers the visitor, assumes the exercise on his part of a degree of circumspection and restraint to avoid the abuse of its advantages, such as would have been unnecessary had they been more commonplace.

The difficulty of adequately instructing and reminding the visitor of its exactions in this respect was, from the outset of the work, known to be the most vulnerable point in the undertaking. The means adopted for the purpose were, however, for a series of years, so far effective as to give increasing assurance of the practicability of success, the only apparent danger ahead being that, through political corruption, unskillful administration or improvident parsimony, the force of park-keepers should become insufficient for its required duty, either in numbers or in training and discipline.

The public seemed not only to submit to the enforcement of the necessary regulations, but to welcome the means used for that purpose, and pride was taken in the belief that the park was to present an exceptionally creditable exhibition of orderliness and decorum, as well as of finish and good keeping.

A lawless habit was rare among visitors, and it was apparent that even men of reckless disposition and unaccustomed to polite restraints upon selfishness were under influences when in the park which dissuaded them from a misuse of its privileges.

The admonitions of the keepers were generally received in good spirit and willingly heeded, and when this was not the case, by-standers were often prompt to reprove the offender and applaud the representative of the law.

It was to be expected, as the city should in effect be brought nearer, year by year, to the park, and it thus came to be more easily, familiarly and numerously visited, that the means used for instructing and reminding visitors of their duty would be found less effective, and would require enlargement, if not modification of character.

The average attendance at the park having already reached thirty thousand a day, and apparently increasing at a more rapid rate than ever before, it is wise, at this time, to inquire how far the requirements of the plan as to the conduct of the public in its use, continue to be met.

After careful study of the matter during the last year, it is found that a change has occurred greatly for the worse.

[575]

The park is much misused, and this not merely by men of lawless ways, but even more by people whose appearance indicates orderly habits and a disposition to regard the common interests of the community.

Regulations which for the general convenience are most necessary to be observed, are often obeyed in a way which conveys a protest and reproof to the policemen enforcing them; more often, openly disregarded.

Even the children playing on the skating-pond and ballground are latterly manifestly much more rude in their ways than they were a few years ago—more ready to violence, and more apt to commit wanton injury upon the objects provided for their accommodation and gratification.

If what has been lost in this respect shall not be speedily recovered and a reverse tendency established, the distinguishing elements of advantage which this park has been supposed to possess over others will, with the rapidly-increasing numbers of visitors, become elements of disadvantage; the money which has been and is now being spent in their development will have been wasted, and sooner or later a new park will have to be made upon the ruins of that hitherto designed, adapted to recreation of a less refined character, and in which there shall be little to lose through mere carelessness and rudeness.

To get the better of this danger is the most important duty before the department, for the reason that there can be no waste of the city’s wealth controllable by the board equal to that which will result from the use of inadequate means for the purpose.

Many reasons for the change in the habits and disposition with which the park is used might be indicated, none of them involving the supposition that a change has occurred in the character of the people rendering them less amenable to reasonable requirements, and most of them referable to the fact that the park was for two years under a government indifferent to the danger and strongly disposed to vary from the methods of its previous management in every way practicable.

The principal cause, however, must be believed to be that, notwithstanding the fact that the total sum of wages paid for police service was, during the period just referred to, increased in larger proportion than the increase which had occurred in the number of visitors, the means of instructing and reminding visitors in an effective way, of what, for their own satisfaction as a whole, would be desirable in their methods of using the park, have not been enlarged correspondingly.

More particularly the growth of an indisposition to yield gracefully to reasonable requirements may be accounted for on the supposition that, in the scarcity and lack of vigilance of keepers, disregard of some of the park ordinances passes so frequently unnoticed, that when, by chance, an attempt to enforce them is experienced, it seems a capricious exercise of authority.

The growing unreadiness to receive a caution, and the difficulty, on this account, of checking a wrong movement excites impatience on the part [576] of the officer, the expression of which, in the voice and otherwise, provokes a disposition of resentment in the minds of visitors who may have fallen into error simply through ignorance or thoughtlessness, and who are thus led to adopt an habitual attitude of resistance and antagonism to all official authority on the park.

A remedy for these evils can only be sought through the slow operation of a prolonged course of measures, patiently and assiduously sustained, in freedom from the embarrassments to good administration which political considerations are usually allowed to establish in this city.

Before studying the question of the changes desirable for this purpose, a review of the present condition of the police force of the park is necessary.

A summary statement of its defects would be that it numbers many men not well adapted to its purpose; it is not organized fitly for its purpose; it is not trained fitly for its purpose; it lacks the respect for and confidence in the power of its officers which is requisite to suitable discipline, and it is possessed of a factious, jealous, furtive and intriguing disposition in the highest degree unfavorable to its efficiency.

To exhibit these conditions more particularly, it is to be said, with regard to the first, that the selection of many of the men now on the force has unquestionably been made less with a consideration of their qualifications than with a view to the gratification of persons having not the smallest accountability for the character of the park, and neither interest in or knowledge of the kind of service desirable to be secured in its police. Many of those thus appointed have been of irregular life and improvident habits, unwilling to work as laborers, and unable to gain a livelihood in any regular trade.

These misfortunes, with, perhaps, the fact of their possessing a large acquaintance and influence with it which can be used politically, have been, in fact, the ground of their appointment.

It is hardly necessary to point out that, while such men may long avoid conviction for offences under which they would incur dismissal, their disposition and habits are such as to make them much harder to train into a desirable class of park-keepers, than would be the average steady and industrious day laborer. Nor is it necessary to explain that the influence of even a small number of such men must have been bad upon the character of the whole force, leading it toward a general habit of perfunctorily getting through the motions technically necessary to the pocketing of its pay, with the least application of intelligence to its duty possible.

In respect to faults of organization and training, it is to be observed that two years ago the force was re-formed, with the evident assumption that the service to which it was to be adapted, differed, except in the very simple requirement met by the element of the gate-keepers, in no way essentially from that aimed to be secured in the organization and training of the ordinary street police of the city.

[577]

The former chief officer was removed and one appointed who was new to the park, wholly uninstructed in its special requirements, and whose recommendation lay in the fact that he had passed reputably through the various ranks of the metropolitan police to that of captain, and was thus to be presumed to have a familiar knowledge of, and proficiency in, the common duties of that force.

It will be evident upon reflection, that the assumption thus underlying the organization is fallacious; the duty with reference to which the metropolitan police is regulated and trained, differing widely from that to which the park police should be adapted.

The starting point of organization for the metropolitan police is the liability of citizens to suffer from fires and other disasters to buildings, from burglaries, riots and other crimes of violence. Its most important object is to overawe, outwit and bring to punishment the constant enemies of society, and to guard vast stores of private property from their depredations. The means chiefly relied upon for this purpose is that of a guard patrolling the sidewalks, in front of the walls and doors which constitute the primary means for the same purpose, and the training chiefly required is that which will develop a keen scent for discovering, and a quick and strong hand for getting the better of deliberate attempts at felony.

On the park there are no stores of private property, no walls or doors to be guarded, and respectable women and well nurtured children are much more tempted to the class of acts which it is the chief business of the park police to prevent, than rogues and ruffians. The manner and method of proceeding proper to the park policeman, is consequently different from that in which the street patrol is necessarily educated.

It is true that there is a certain liability to petty crimes like pocket-picking on the park, and there is, at certain points, public property of a class liable to be plundered, but a proper system of providing against these dangers would be very different from that of the street patrol, and its cost would be but a small part of the necessary expenses of the present police organization of the park.

Again, an important, though secondary duty of the metropolitan police is the regulation of the wheel-traffic of the streets, nine-tenths of its service in this respect being called for by the passage through the streets of classes of vehicles which are excluded from the park, and by the obstructions and disorders which attend the loading and unloading of these.

It is further to be considered that the different parts of the street are clearly divided, the purposes of each part fixed and obvious, the rules governing the use by the public of each part few, simple, constant and little liable to be broken except with knowledge and direct intent; the evil to be apprehended from designed infraction of them, direct and palpable. On the contrary, the difference of the park are very numerous, the lines of division not always well defined, the purposes of some are various, complicated and often not well [578] understood, the rules governing their use are numerous and vary with circumstances; they may be broken without harm perceptible to the breaker, and the liability to break them through ignorance and unintentionally, is much greater than that to the willful transgression of them. An organization adapted to common police duties in the streets would consequently be of little use on the park.

The service for which there is the most frequent need on the Central Park is, in fact, that of quietly and civilly pointing out to visitors, and mainly to women and children, how they can best attain what they desire, so far as it is to be found in the park, and cautioning them in a respectful, courteous and propitiating way when they may be seen to be going wrong, either ignorantly or carelessly, or through an inadequate appreciation of the harm which would result in the park from actions which elsewhere often pass as venial, if not harmless. Such, for example, would be the picking of way-side flowers or the hunting of birds’-nests in thickets.

A class of men unfit to be charged with the responsibilities of the metropolitan police might be trained to perform ordinary park-keeper’s duties on the walks in a decorous and efficient manner, whose willing and zealous service could be obtained at a rate of wages considerably less than is paid the metropolitan or the present park patrol.

It will be evident, with a little consideration, that this class of services is chiefly called for by persons visiting the park on foot—first, because there are three times as many of them as of those driving carriages; second, because the courses open to carriages are few and simple, and the limits of their range unmistakable and constantly the same; third, because the rules of the road differ little on the park and elsewhere, and all drivers are familiar with them; and, fourth, because carriages anywhere on the roads of the park are conspicuous, while visitors on foot are often in comparative obscurity, and are liable to go much astray without being observed.

There are nearly thirty miles of walks in the Central Park, and the occasion for keeper’s service at a particular moment in any part of them varies very much in proportion to the number of visitors then in that part. Under ordinary circumstances, in fair summer weather, the average number of visitors upon any mile of walk, will be only from one to two hundred, often very much less, but on frequent occasions it rises to from three to four thousand.

All these special circumstances are overlooked, or at most very slightly regarded, in the present police organization of the park; the same force is regularly employed at the same hour every day, and it is almost exclusively engaged in patrolling the drives, attention to visitors on foot, except on extraordinary occasions and when unusual demands are made upon the men, being merely incidental or desultory. The patrolmen are paid the same wages throughout, and these are substantially as high as those paid the regular police patrol of the city streets.

It is true, that a provision exists by which when desired the regular [579] police force can be supplemented by temporary, special policemen; that the laborers of the park are sometimes used for this purpose at a rate of pay one-third less than that of the regular patrolmen; and that when so employed, they are stationed, for the most part, on the walks, and what have been referred to as park-keepers’ services, in distinction from street police duties, are then chiefly expected of them. But this element of the organization is to the last degree imperfect; the men have had little instruction, no uniform and no special discipline, and the chief significance of the provision is that of a lame apology for the incomplete adaptation of the regular force to the public requirements on the parks.

In respect to the morale of the regular force, besides what has already been incidently shown, it is to be observed that the larger part of the men seem to have a settled conviction that the attainment of excellence in their special business, and of the favorable judgement of their officers through an experience of the results of that excellence, is a matter of much less consequence to them than the avoidance of the ill-will, or the securing or maintaining the good-will, of persons not publicly accountable for the consequences of their neglect of their duties. With perhaps two exceptions, whenever, during the last six months, anyone of them has been advised that questions by which his personal interests will be affected are to be considered by superior authority, it has been evident that he has at once set to work to bring outside influence to bear upon the matter. Those whose aid is sought, are not men merely of political power, but often gentlemen who have justly earned by their services to the community, or, as in the case of clergymen, by their representative position, a claim to consideration in all affairs in which they exhibit an interest.

There can be no complete reform of the force until the contrary conviction has in turn become fixed, namely, that the character which it is in the power of each man to build up for himself within the department, is a matter of much greater consequence to him than the disfavor, the charity or the “patronage” of anyone outside of it.

Convictions of this class, which have their hold deep in the ruling follies of our politics and state of society, are not perhaps to be wholly overcome, but in this view the necessity of a consistent, severe, exacting discipline of the force, if the park is not to be ruined, is only the more apparent.

Before proceeding to the question of a course of remedies, another point in which the park has been of late losing character needs to be referred to.

By noon on any fine day in summer the floors of the arbors and shelters, and the walks near most of the seats, are generally rendered uninviting by the tobacco quids and spittle, cigar stumps, nut shells, papers, and offal of fruit and other food, which visitors have cast away. Sometimes they become not merely uninviting but filthy, so that a tidy woman approaching to take a seat draws back in disgust.

[580]

This is not the worst effect, however, for experience proves that nothing operates with such a restraining influence upon men disposed to rudeness as evidences of care on the part of others about them for cleanliness, refinement and beauty; while lack of decency in floors and furniture suggests and provokes lawlessness of action, as well as foul language and uncivil manners.

As the use of the park, through the advance of the city northward, becomes more common, constant and familiar, the evil indicated, if it is allowed to increase and become more and more manifest, will seriously detract from its value. The time has indeed already arrived when a wise economy in the management of the park requires that all its walks, and the floors of buildings open to the public, its seats and other furniture should, in fair weather, be made clean at frequent intervals during the day.

It seems probable that this duty might be combined with such watchfulness of the movements of visitors, and such advice and assistance to them as, under ordinary circumstances, would be needed by those on the walks.

Since the change of administration last autumn, the daily rate of cost of the police service of the department has been reduced from $500 to $338, or $60,000 a year. This has been chiefly accomplished by the dismissal of men whose absence has improved the force, and really increased its strength. There are still those upon it poorly enough adapted to the service required, but the number of men now remaining is too small for efficiency. This will be better realized when it is considered that each man on duty has to cover from two to four miles in length of public ways, with forty acres of ground, generally broken and abounding with concealments, and that the number of visitors within this area, sometimes exceeds 10,000.

If the suggestion made above for the keeping of walks, seats and houses should be adopted, a force somewhat smaller than the present patrol being assigned to the drives, the arrangement might answer for ordinary conditions of attendance.

On extraordinary occasions, still larger numbers of men would, however, certainly be wanted, for the following reasons: With the usual fair-weather attendance of perhaps 15,000 on foot, a man may now and then leave the walks and make his way through underwood, or across a glade, without causing material harm. When, however, the number of foot visitors is 30,000 to 60,000, the temptation to leave the thronged walks is stronger, and the number of men acted upon by it is greater, and wherever one is seen to have struck out of the usual course without being sent back, it is very apt to be the case that others are found disposed to follow, including such as would never have thought of taking the lead. With every additional one allowed to go wrong, the number increases of those whose scruples yield. In this way thickets which had stood uninjured for years have, this summer, in a very short time been seriously damaged, and paths so trodden as to kill the turf, while a disregard of the ordinances and of good customs has been made familiar [581] to thousands. So, if a couple of visitors climb a rock, slightly disturbing the vines and lichens upon it in doing so, or stretch themselves out on a piece of clear turf, the chances are, when the park is thronged, that the example will be followed within a quarter of an hour by scores; vines, mosses and alpine plants, which have been nursed with assiduity, will be wholly detached from the rock and destroyed, and in lack of sufficient scope of clear turf, ferns and flowering-plants on the borders of the glade will be crushed. Under these circumstances the number of persons plainly disregarding the common requirements is sometimes so great that the keepers are forced to abandon their duty, except with reference to aggravated cases, and chiefly of such a class of disorders as would call for the police outside of the park. The permanent demoralization which results, both to the keepers and to the public, in respect to the manner in which the park should be used, is apparent. The only preventive is to place a force on duty on these occasions adequate, in numbers, to bring any part of the park, where the walks are thronged, under frequent observation, so that the tendency to general escapades may be checked before it shall have got beyond control or marked damage have resulted.

For reasons, which it is hoped have thus been sufficiently stated, a reform of the police arrangements of the Central Park is advised, of which the following would be leading features.

1st. The reduction in numbers of the present regular force, chiefly through the enforcement of a higher standard of duty and the dismissal of men convicted of offences indicating unfitness of constitution and habits for the service needed; perhaps, also, by the dismissal of all men who have not shown positive evidence of special fitness for the service. This to form the only constant force for police duty and to serve as a central and superior body in a larger organization.

2d. The organization of a body of men to work constantly through the day, in taking care of walks, seats and houses throughout the park, who shall be uniformed and systematically instructed to guide, inform and caution visitors, as occasion offers, incidentally to their work. This element would be employed on police service only in fair weather, expenditure for that purpose, so far as it was concerned, ceasing with storms, and being at all times relative in amount in some degree to the number of visitors.

3d. The organization of a larger body of men selected from the gardeners and laborers of the park and their training in the same duties, so that when the park is more than usually thronged, all or any desirable part of them can be quickly drawn from work, uniformed by a light overall suit, and distributed as circumstances may require.

---

The number of men which would be required, and the necessary cost of an efficient system of keepers’ service such as has thus been outlined can be determined with accuracy only after it has had some period of trial. [582] The intention being to secure much more efficient service, it is hardly to be asked that the expenditure shall be less than it is with the present reduced force.

The draught of a resolution is appended which is adapted to initiate arrangements in accordance with the views which have been presented.