New York Dispatch

Where Consolidations Might be Justly Effected.

AN INEFFICIENT PARK POLICE
A Valuable Dog Stolen from Under Their Noses.

What an ex-Park Commissioner Thinks of Its Management.

The articles in the Dispatch, relative to the maintenance of Central Park, and the official mismanagement and extravagance of the same has had the effect of calling public attention to this and other departments under the city government. It was shown in a previous series of articles how the Department of Education was made the holding place for a number of barnacles. some of them exceedingly respectable, but none of them rendering anything like an equivalent for the salaries they regularly draw from the city treasury.

SHREWD DODGE TO OBTAIN A LARGE ALLOWANCE.

When the Board of Estimate and Apportionment met a short time ago to receive the estimate of the various departments for the coming year, it was found that the Park Commissioners asked for about $900,000. When the final allowance was made, the Board of Estimate and Apportionment allowed the following amount for the department:

THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC PARKS
Maintenance and Government of Parks and Places: expending the sum of $30,000 for the keeping, preservation, and exhibitions of the collections in the American Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and including the entire salaries of the President. Clerks, Officers, and Employees. other than Foremen and Laborers: also, including the maintenance of the Meteorological Observatory. $450,000 00

Harlem River Bridges, Repairs, Improvements, and Maintenance. 35,000 00

Music.Central Park. 6,000 00

Independence Day, Celebration of..... 8,000 00

Maintenance and Government of Public Places, Streets, Roads. Avenues, and Bridges, Twenty-third and Twenty- fourth Wards... 50,000 00

Surveying, Laying Out, Monumenting, etc., north end of the island, and Twenty-third and Twenty- fourth Wards. 35,000 00

Total 584,000 00

For the maintenance and government of Central Park proper, it will be seen that $450,000 is allowed. One of the commissioners in conversation with a friend who alluded to the fact that the estimate had been materially cut down. said that the Park Commissioners had expected it, and for that reason had placed the estimates high enough to admit of a very considerable reduction, and still have about the amount they wanted. And from the self-satisfied way in which the commissioner spoke, it was evident that the Park Department were very well satisfied with the amount allowed it.

THE SINECURE ENGINEER DEPARTMENT
There are two exceedingly "soft places" nominally in the gift of the Park Commissioners, but really held by Controller Green, whose friends are at the head of them. The head of the Bureau of Construction is Engineer Wm. H. Grant, and the other "soft place" comprises the Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth Wards, of which Geo. S. Greene, Topographical Engineer, is in charge. Mr. Grant has charge of the bridges in the Central Park and on the upper part of the island, including the Third avenue and McComb's Dam bridge, while Mr. Greene has charge of the roads and bridges in the new Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth Wards. We showed last week how large an engineer force was maintained here. We have it on the word of an ex-Park Commissioner that not one-half this engineer force is necessary. The two departments individualized above could be consolidated, and run just as well as now. The amount allowed for construction of bridges, roads, etc., under the direction of these two Bureaus is only a little more than $100,000, while the salaries paid out of the $450,000 allowed for the maintenance of Parks and Places amount to very nearly as much.

WHERE ANOTHER CONSOLIDATION CAN BE MADE TO ADVANTAGE,

There are two sets of accounts kept one at the Arsenal in the Park, and another at the headquarters of the Park Commission, at Fourth avenue and Sixteenth street. There should be apparently no reason for this doubling up. In fact, the new Park Commissioners who have gone in, one after another. have been surprised to find it so, but whenever they have protested against or asked why such a state of things was allowed to exist, they were told that it was inaugurated during the Controller's time. and that he was averse to a change. And this seems to be the anomaly that many of the new Commissioners cannot understand. Why any officer who is at the head of the Finance Department should be able to control the workings of a Department with which he has been officially connected for more than four years is something that at first glance seems strange, and something that the outside public, although they hear a great deal, do not know the details. The simple explanation lies in the Controller's wonderful power of combination and manipulation, and his steady persistency. Although beaten, he may safely be reckoned upon to keep up the fight and win in the end, although his opponents at the outset had all the advantage. They are simply worried out.

THE PARK POLICE ADMINISTRATION
The Park Commissioners in their estimates sent in to the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, complained that the police force were not sufficient to prevent depredations in the Park, Swans and other birds nests were robbed with impunity, and even trees were cut down for the purpose of getting at the nests of those birds which built in them, The assertion was made last week that this was an evidence of incompetency on the part of the police, from the captain down. Ex-Police Commissioners corroborate this assertion. They say that Captain Koster is unfit for this position; that he lacks police education and natural ability, and his force is in the main of about the same calibre.

A SPECIMEN OF WATCHFULNESS
Some time ago Mr, Bergh and some of the officers of: the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals made a raid on adog fight while in progress, arrested the principals engaged in the affair, and seized one of the dogs, a valuable animal, well known as a fighting dog. Mr. Bergh did not know what to do with the animal, and it was finally placed in the Arsenal Building in the Central Park, where are also the headquarters of the police. The dog mysteriously disappeared, and when the matter was investigated, Captain Koster could not even tell what sergeant was on duty when the dog was stolen Therefore, no one could be held responsible.

FIVE TAILORS TO SEW ON BUTTONS.
The officers and patrolmen of the police force number 78, and there are 28 gatekeepers. To sew the buttons on the clothing of this small squad of men there are no less than five tailors! This seemed so ridiculous that the Commissioners one day, in a spasm of economy, sent for the tailors with the intention of reducing their number. When the squad were arraigned before the Board for judgment, they presented a pitiable appearance. They included the "lame, halt, and (nearly) blind." There was a strong outcry made by certain of the officials against discharging these people, all of whom had families dependent on them. It did seem like rather small business, considering that there were so many other sinecurists, the salary of each one of whom would pay the wages of the entire five, that nothing was done, and the tailors are still there. There will be no reduction until the pressure of hard times and the burden of taxation compels one.

THE EXPERIENCE OF A REFORM COMMISSIONER.
An Ex-Park Commissioner, a man of wealth and position, whose name is a guaranty of his honesty, a leader in the Reform movement, and one of those first appointed by Mayor Havemeyer when the Department of Parks was reconstructed under the provisions of the new charter, recently gave the writer a vivid description of the management of the Parks while he was in the Board. The Commissioners had scarce been appointed when they were called on by the Controller and requested by him to vote for a man named Evans for Secretary. Evans had served as secretary some time before, when the Controller was one of the Park Commissioners, and at a later date. The motive for this was evident. The Secretary would be present at all the meetings of the Board except in executive session, and of course the Controller would be kept thoroughly posted on all that was going on. The new Commissioner objected to vote for Evans on the ground that he did not think him fit for the place. The Controller left in a huff, and so quickly that he forgot to bid the commissioner good evening. It were too long a story to attempt to give all the details. Two of the commissioners were in the interest of the Controller, and willing to do his bidding. Three were inclined to be independent, and the. result was that in the selection of officials the Controller was worsted. The management of the Park was then looked into. Plenty of sinecures were found, especially in the Engineer's Department, as was shown in the preceding articles in the Dispatch But when an attempt was made to abolish these there went up a cry sufficient to deafen the Commissioners. Of course, influence was at once brought to bear to prevent a reduction of the force. Political and social influence were used with effect. Then, in