By the bye, it has just occurred to me that the Fourth of July is
properly a show. It might be called a burlesque, but for the fact that
it is unaccompanied by the luxury of legs. Indeed, after the celebration
is over, there are always fewer legs in the nation than there were at
its commencement. There is no canon of criticism which would expurgate
legs from the theatrical burlesque, but there are cannons of Fourth of
July which do their best to abolish the incautious legs of patriotic
youth. I reconsider my purpose of writing of the CENTRAL PARK GARDEN,
and will devote this column to the national show.

I have somewhere read--not in BANCROFT'S History, of course; no man ever
did that and lived--that the Fourth of July was established in order to
commemorate our deliverance from a government which taxed us with
stamp-duties. How happy ought we to be when we reflect that, thanks to
our noble fathers who fought and bled at Long Branch. I should say
Nahant,--well, at some watering-place, I really forget precisely
where,--we have no taxes, and know not what a revenue stamp is like!
Thank fortune, we have no share in the national debt of Great Britain,
and have no national debt of our own that is worth mention. Besides, we
are going to found the little debt that we do owe, so that nobody will
ever be bothered about it again.

I like this plan of funding debts; but, curiously enough, sordid
capitalists and miserly landlords don't. I offered the other day to fund
all my personal debts, in the shape of a long loan at three per cent,
but my creditors did not take kindly to the idea. Such is the sordid
meanness which is too sadly characteristic of the merely commercial
mind. But to return to our subject, which is, I believe, the CENTRAL
PARK GARDEN.