[Illustration: 'C']

CENTRAL PARK GARDEN is the subject of this article.

It is all very well for the editor of PUNCHINELLO to require me to write
about the Plays and Shows, but how would he like to do it himself, with
the thermometer at 103 degrees, and the Fourth of July only just over?
And then, inasmuch as I am not a white-hatted philosopher, writing of
"What I know about Farming," how can I be expected to write of things
which have no existence? For, with the exception of the CENTRAL PARK
GARDEN, and one or two minor places of amusement, there are no plays and
shows at present in this happy city.

We certainly owe the managers a debt of gratitude for closing their hot
and glaring theatres during this intolerable month. Of course nobody was
obliged to attend them while they were open; but then, when people were
told that the theatres were crowded to an uncomfortable extent, they
felt an irrepressible desire to go and be uncomfortable.

It is one of the peculiar characteristics of Man, as distinguished from
the higher animals, that he will go through fire and water to get into a
theatre which he is told is crammed to the point of suffocation, whereas
he won't deign to enter one where he is sure to find a comfortable seat.
Now the charm of the CENTRAL PARK GARDEN consists in this: that the
visitor can take his vapor bath in the Seventh Avenue cars on his way to
the Garden, and can enjoy the sweet consciousness of being jostled and
sat upon in the search for amusement, while he is still certain of
finding pure air and plenty of room at the GARDEN itself.