Morally, if not legally, it is mine; morally it is yours as well, you wizened, pallid, blue-nozed, dunderheaded Metropolitan Citizen!
In this jungle of houses, what is wanted is fresh air.
Everyone of you toilers should be given the real “Freedom of the City,” by having free spaces bestowed on you.
It is better to learn how to expand the limbs, and play rounders, and leap over the frog, and fly kites,
Than to acquire in a school-room elementary education, consisting of algebra and Assyrian hieroglyphics, spelling, Greek, Italian, and advanced trigonometry.
Allons, then! Esperanza! Also cui bono! Go to your Home Secretary, your Postmaster in General, and tell them that no Post Office, or School, shall be built on this spot.
Because I, Walt, hailing hoarsely from Manhattan, have spotted it,
And Punch, the lustrous camerado, the ineffable dispensator, will spot it too!
Punch. September 3, 1887.