them, who will before many years make this city the first in the world in point of size, to bequeath them pleasure grounds commensurate with its greatness.” The struggle continued until, in February, 1856, following a favorable court decision, Bryant could congratulate the city that it had been won, and that the landscaping of Central Park might begin within a few months. This was eleven years after his original proposal. He, more than any one else, deserves to be called the father of the idea; though Downing’s labors in promoting it were quite as great as his. II These were years in which much had to be said of the defects of the municipal services, and especially of the police. When the forties began there was no force for the prevention of crime, and only a small, underpaid watch for making arrests. Theodore Sedgwick, Jr., remarked in the _Evening Post_ of September, 1841, upon “the frequency of atrocious crimes”; why was it “that brutal crimes, murders, and rapes have suddenly become so common?” The answer, he thought, was that New Yorkers elected their city administrations for their views upon national questions, not because they would furnish efficient government. It was then held shocking that in less than two years, 1838–9, there had been six murders in the city and no convictions. On the Fourth of July in 1842 a German named Rosseler, who kept a quiet beer garden on Twenty-first Street, ejected some ruffians from it; and two days later they returned, burnt his house, destroyed his property, and almost killed a neighbor whom they mistook for him. The _Evening Post_ was moved to demand “a police which has eyes and ears for all these enormities, and hands to seize the offenders.” Just a week before Mayor Morris called upon the Legislature (May 29, 1843) in his annual message to provide an adequate police, Bryant penned another protest: We maintain a body of watchmen, but they are of no earthly use, except here and there to put an end to a street brawl, and sometimes to pick up a drunken man and take him to the watch house. In some cases, they have been suspected of being in a league with the robbers. At present, we hear of a new case of housebreaking about as often as every other day. Within a few days past, in one neighborhood in the upper part of town, two houses have been broken into and plundered, and an attempt has been made to set fire to another. Of course there will be no end to this evil, until there is a reform in the police regulations--until a police of better organization and more efficiency shall be introduced. Our city swarms with daring and ingenious rogues, many of whom have been driven from the Old World, and who find no difficulty in exercising their vocation here with perfect impunity.