FOREWORD 



THE increasing interest taken in the matter of clean 

 streets and the absence of any treatise which may 

 serve as a guide to right principles and practices in 

 this branch of sanitation has tempted me to bring 

 together some of my notes on this subject. 



These notes are based not only on my own experi- 

 ence, although I have been called upon to clean cities 

 under peculiarly difficult circumstances, but more par- 

 ticularly upon studies which I made during a three 

 months' visit to Europe in 1907, partly for an advisory 

 commission on street cleaning for New York appointed 

 by Mayor McClellan. While in Europe opportunities 

 were afforded me to discuss the question of clean streets 

 with many officials and I took part in the delibera- 

 tions of the committee on street hygiene of the Inter- 

 national Congress for Itygiene and Demography which 

 met in Berlin. 



Much of the statistical information contained in 

 these pages has been kindly supplied by officials with 

 whom I have come in contact, and to whom I am 

 indebted for many favors. About twenty large cities 

 were seen, including London, Paris, and Berlin. I had 

 already visited most of these cities, once eight years 

 before and once earlier. 



By way of comparison I have added to the account 

 of foreign methods of street cleaning a chapter on the 

 work of the New York Street Cleaning Department, 



in 



