STREET-CLEANING IN LARGE CITIES. 751 



and with ample power for its important purposes. Appropri- 

 ations for this department have increased from year to year, 

 until the enormous sum of $1,787,774.51 was estimated by the 

 commissioner as necessary for the year 1891, and $1,584,250 was 

 the amount appropriated ; changes in the chief officers and em- 

 ploye's have been made ; various methods and devices have been 

 adopted and tried ; but the fact remains and is universally recog- 

 nized that the streets are unclean. Some attribute their condi- 

 tion to insufficient appropriations ; others to the inefficiency and 

 incapacity of those intrusted with the work ; others to political 

 influences and to the use of its offices and appointments as politi- 

 cal patronage ; and others to the system and methods employed 

 in conducting the details of the business. But, whatever the 

 cause, the cry is universal, Is there no remedy or relief ? 



It is confidently asserted that none of the different plans pro- 

 posed for cleaning the streets, nor an appropriation for that pur- 

 pose double the present amount, nor a Commissioner of Street- 

 cleaning of ideal business ability, fidelity, and integrity, can 

 give New York clean streets, so long as householders and house- 

 keepers sweep or throw their dust, dirt, ashes, garbage, or refuse, 

 or any part of such material, into the streets, or allow anything 

 to escape from their garbage receptacles upon the sidewalk or 

 upon the street, nor so long as carts conveying dirt and refuse 

 are allowed to drop any part of their contents on the streets. A 

 walk in the principal streets and avenues from seven to nine 

 o'clock in the morning will convince the observer that, whatever 

 the shortcomings of the Street-cleaning Department, storekeepers 

 and housekeepers are primarily and incidentally responsible for 

 dirty streets by allowing their employe's to sweep into the streets 

 the dust of their houses or stores, and the dirt and refuse found 

 upon the sidewalk. If the walk is extended to the tenement- 

 house districts at any hour of the day, it will be noticed that it is 

 quite the custom to throw ashes and garbage into the streets, and 

 to allow these materials to escape into the street or upon the 

 sidewalk from insufficient, improper, or overflowing receptacles. 

 It will also be noticed that, soon after a street has been cleaned, it 

 is again defiled by the refuse and garbage from the neighboring 

 buildings, and that the carts which transport street dirt, ashes, 

 and garbage, sand for new buildings, earth from cellar excava- 

 tions, and the dust and dirt from buildings torn down, scatter 

 some part of their contents into the street as they proceed to 

 their destination. A student of the problem of street-cleaning 

 has only to make the above observations to learn the primary 

 cause of dirty streets in New York, and that, without a thorough 

 reform in this particular, relief is well-nigh hopeless. This sim- 

 ple solution of the problem is only the application to the streets 



