August 8, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



225 



Mr. Baker's book on 'Municipal Engineer- 

 ing and Sanitation' is one of the series of the 

 Citizen's Library published by the Macmil- 

 lan Company, and is 'intended for that 

 large and rapidly growing class of persons 

 who, either as officials or as citizens, are striv- 

 ing to improve municipal conditions.' For 

 this purpose the book cannot be too highly rec- 

 ommended, and if generally read cannot fail 

 to exereise a powerful influence for good in 

 sanitation, as it will stimulate an interest and 

 educate the public in the various and impor- 

 tant questions of municipal hygiene. The 

 book is divided into five parts with 43 chap- 

 ters. Part I. deals with the city and its 

 needs, ways and means of communication, in- 

 cluding streets, pavements and sidewalks, sub- 

 ways, grade crossings, urban and interurban 

 transportation, bridges, docks, telegraph, tele- 

 phone and messenger service. 



Part II. treats of water supplies, water puri- 

 fication, water consumption and waste, pure 

 ice, milk, markets and slaughter houses, mu- 

 nicipal ofiice buildings, light, heat and' power. 

 Part III. contains chapters on sewerage and 

 drainage, sewage disposal, street cleaning, col- 

 lection and disposal of refuse, cemeteries and 

 crematories. 



We like the text and the whole tone of the 

 book; here is a sample: "One reason for the 

 unsatisfactory state of garbage disposal in 

 the United States is the failure to recognize 

 that the problem is a technical one, demand- 

 ing a high grade of engineering knowledge for 

 its solution. Most cities intrust the study of 

 the garbage question to some council or com- 

 mittee possessed with no previous knowledge 

 of the subject and with no training which fits 

 its members to gather and weigh information. 

 Such committees generally take a more or less 

 extended tour of insjjection of garbage plants 

 in other cities, where they are very likely to 

 be met by commercial agents of the various 

 systems in use; the outcome often is that the 

 agent who can make the most favorable im- 

 pression on the committee, by talk, wine and 

 theaters, has the pleasure and possible profit 

 of having his system adopted. Kightly con- 

 ducted these trips may prove instructive and 

 valuable, but, hurried and superficial as they 



usually are, they are likely to give false im- 

 pressions. They should always be supple- 

 mented by competent engineering advice. The 

 latter might be obtained in the first instance 

 with less expense and more certainty of sovuid 

 conclusions than is likely to be the result of 

 an investigating trip by three to ten laymen." 



Part IV. deals with protection of life, 

 health and property, and contains chapters on 

 fire protection, building and plumbing regu- 

 lations, electrolysis of underground pipes, 

 smoke abatement, suppression of noises, dis- 

 infection, prevention of water pollution, pub- 

 lic baths and wash houses, public lavatories 

 and water-closets, municipal dwellings and 

 lodging houses, municipal parks, playgrounds 

 and gymnasiums. These chapters are of 

 special interest to the general reader. We 

 are told by the author that the cities of Eu- 

 rope and Japan are far in advance of Amer- 

 ican municipalities in the provision which 

 they have made for public baths. The city 

 of Tokio is said to contain one thousand such 

 establishments. 



In the United States at the close of 1900 

 not more than a dozen cities had provided 

 themselves with all-the-year-round baths. It 

 is sometimes urged that in this country there 

 is much less need of public baths than abroad 

 on account of the greater prevalence of bath 

 rooms in private homes, and in connection 

 with philanthropic organizations, but the fal- 

 lacy, of this argument is apparent by the sta- 

 tistics collected by the United States Depart- 

 ment of Labor, which show the percentages of 

 the families in four of our largest cities who 

 had no bath rooms, Baltimore 98 per cent., 

 Chicago 97 per cent., New York 97 per cent., 

 Philadelphia, 83 per cent. A similar plea is 

 made for public lavatories and water-closets, 

 which are lamentably deficient in American 

 cities, and often compel recourse to saloons. 

 The chapter on municipal dwellings and lodg- 

 ing houses contains food for refiection. The 

 author says: "An exhibit in the year 1900 by 

 the Tenement House Committee of the New 

 York Charity Organization Society made ap- 

 parent the fact that there is no place in the 

 world where the decent poor have so poor a 

 cliance to live decently as in New York. 



