A debt of $135,000 encumbers the Cincinnati Zoological gardens, and they will probably have to be sold out. Philadelphia was in somewhat the same fix, but subscriptions have been made sufficient to tide it for one year over its troubles, in the hope that something lucky may turn up. Public gardens in many cities are being felt as heavy burdens, beyond the ability of tax-payers to bear. All this comes about from two causes, chiefly. One is, a want of capacity in the management to combine instruction with that pleasure which ordinary minds appreciate; the other is, a want of capacity to understand that there is instruction and beauty to be had at small cost as well as at extravagant figures. Whenever any complaint is made that things are not as they might be, the universal reply is, "give us more money." Only think, that the tax-payers of Philadelphia give the Fairmount Park Commission about a quarter of a million of dollars, and yet the commission grumble because this amount is so limited. They spend one-third of this sum in employing policemen at enormous salaries. The celebrated Kew gardens in England, cost only $100,000 a year, and notwithstanding its immense treasures, a dozen policemen keep the whole thing in order.

It is not difficult to see where our weaknesses come in.