Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/489

 A MODEL MUNICIPAL DEPARTMENT 471

generally tend to reduce this constant possibility of friction to a minimum.

II. METHODS AND RESULTS.

The vast responsibility incurred in protecting the health of a modern city, the innumerable ways in which the health officials must come in close personal contact with the people, and the way in which the welfare of the latter is bound up in the effi- ciency of the former are beautifully illustrated in New York at the present time. Let us see, therefore, the methods adopted by this city's Department of Health, and the results which have been brought about under the present administration. We shall then be in a position to judge wherein these methods have failed or succeeded, and how far the results achieved have been due to the form of the machinery itself, and how far to the character and methods of the men behind the guns.

I. THE DIVISION OF INSPECTIONS.

To perform all the work of this division properly requires the services of some fifty inspectors in the borough of Manhattan alone, of whom at least thirty, according to the requirements of the revised charter, must be physicians of skill and practical professional experience in the city. Besides, the board may from time to time appoint a large number of special inspectors for one purpose or another. The whole city is divided into dis- tricts varying in size largely according to the character and occupation of the population, and the difficulties of the work each in charge of an inspector who is held personally respon- sible for its general sanitary condition.

The filing of complaints and the general methods of inspection. The large offices of the division in the headquarters building, at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Fifty-fifth Street, Manhattan, are among the busiest in the whole department. Here is the chief inspector, assisted by a deputy and a large force of office clerks. Here, too, the sergeant in charge of the Sanitary Squad of police has his headquarters, and the officers under him may be seen going in and out for orders along with the other sanitary inspectors. For the members of the police squad must report every morning and evening, although the other inspectors of the