mi: CLEANING OF PAVEMENTS 



cleaners sometimes go through a street in gangs, but 

 more often they are here, as in Europe, assigned to 

 regular patrols. 



The refuse collected by these laborers is put into bar- 

 rels, bags or hand-carts or thrown temporarily into bins 

 or pits situated inside the curb-line. In some American 

 cities small metal barrels are carried through the streets 

 on light carriages which the workman pushes along 

 before him. Stationary receptacles are suitable only 

 on streets with heavy traffic. 



Although the hand-workers are usually provided with 

 shovels, iron scrapers, and brooms, and in some cases 

 hand-propelled sweeping-machines, they do not and 

 cannot remove all the dust and mud which it is desirable 

 to remove from a city pavement. This can only be 

 done by the use of water. Nor can hand-workers 

 compete with horse- or motor-propelled rotary brooms 

 in removing large amounts of dirt from the pave- 

 ments. Handwork is best on pavements which 

 are in poor repair. The secret of success in ma- 

 chine work lies in having unobstructed streets and 

 good pavements. Machine work, like flushing, is prop- 

 erly night work. 



The attempts made to use sweeping-machines are 

 often decidedly crude. The brooms are not always 

 preceded, but are sometimes actually followed, by 

 sprinkling-carts. Too often no sprinkling accompanies 

 the sweeping, the result being that dirt is raised through 

 the air in clouds of dust to settle again upon the pave- 

 ments and in the houses. Hand-sweeping is open to 

 the same objection, for when sprinkling is done in 

 connection with this work, it is often perfunctory and 

 ineffective. 



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