A Great Chance for Peter.
Now that we are going to have a new story on the City Hall, would it not be an excellent opportunity to try the highly ingenious scheme of the venerable Peter Cooper, of converting the new portion of that public edifice into a water-tank? What a refreshing idea in the dog-days!
If Peter had only studied political economy as deeply as he has hydraulics, he might have improved his scheme of fire-extinguishing and rendered it at least self-paying, if not a source of revenue. During the summer months, this artificial pond could be rendered an excellent bathing-school, where, beneath the supervision of some of the unoccupied police, small boys could be allowed, at a shilling a head, to indulge in a hydropathic luxury of a dive and come up again. Beyond this, during the winter, the pond being subject, we suppose, to the ordinary afflictions of a cold, might be advantageously employed for the healthy relaxation of skating, during which performance the venerable Peter may patronize the public by an exhibition of his highly respected person, after the manner of his great predecessor, Wonter Von Twiller. By this ingenious arrangement the great water-tank of the great Peter may be rendered as great an institution in a sanatory point of view, as his Institute is to the intellectual world of our Atlantic Metropolis. Peter should be a water-cure doctor.
