750 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



at these hearings that it is hardly possible to draw a contract that 

 will secure clean streets without giving entire and unquestion- 

 able power to the city authorities to revoke and cancel the same 

 at pleasure, and that with such a condition no responsible con- 

 tractor would undertake the work and invest the large amount of 

 money necessary for its performance. The importunity of the 

 Board of Health, and its dissatisfaction with the condition of the 

 streets, finally led to a sale of the street-cleaning contract to the 

 Hon. James R. Whiting, a prominent leader in all movements 

 for municipal reform at that period. Great hopes and expecta- 

 tions were entertained by all good citizens that New York would 

 soon rejoice in clean streets, but they were doomed to disappoint- 

 ment, for no permanent improvement was visible. The opinion 

 of all interested, officially or otherwise, was quite unanimous at 

 last that street-cleaning by contract was a hopeless failure ; and 

 there was a general approval of the act of the Legislature of 1872, 

 imposing temporarily upon the Police Department the duty of 

 cleaning the streets and removing the ashes and garbage of the 

 city. 



The reasons for permanently conferring this power and duty 

 upon the Police Department in the new city charter of 1873 

 were, first, that the commission was non-partisan, the two politi- 

 cal parties being equally represented; and, second, that the de- 

 partment would strictly enforce the laws of the city and sanitary 

 ordinances in respect to' the streets and the care and disposal 

 of ashes and garbage, and thereby remove an alleged cause of 

 the failure of street-cleaning by contract. Although the Police 

 Board was in one sense non-partisan, it soon appeared that both 

 parties were clamoring for appointments and political patronage 

 under the Bureau of Street-cleaning with a power and persist- 

 ence almost irresistible and not always resisted. Nor was there 

 any considerable improvement in the enforcement of the laws 

 and sanitary ordinances in respect to the streets and the care and 

 removal of ashes and garbage. The police force of New York, 

 in physique, intelligence, and bravery, in the detection and pre- 

 vention of crime, and in the protection of life and property, is 

 certainly equal to any in the world ; but for a proper and thorough 

 enforcement of ordinances and regulations, trifling in detail but 

 important in the aggregate, which concern and are necessary to 

 the comfort of the people, it has never been distinguished. The 

 streets of New York under the police regime were certainly as 

 clean, and the removal of the ashes and garbage as well done, as 

 at any previous or subsequent period, and at less expense ; but 

 the department did not satisfy the 'public or the press. A change 

 was earnestly and imperatively demanded, and in 1881 the Legis- 

 lature created a Department of Street-cleaning with a single head 



