Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/505

 A MODEL MUNICIPAL DEPARTMENT 487

Offensive trades. The two inspectors of slaughter-houses have been especially vigilant during the past year, so that while the number of complaints about the offensive odors arising from the large rendering plants, especially on the East Side, were frequent during 1901, there were only three received for the whole city during 1902. The Board of Health also refused to grant permits for two new slaughter-houses the past year, taking the stand that eventually all such offensive trades should be located outside of the city. Meanwhile it has endeavored to keep the established plants in first-class condition, and certainly those visited by the writer and he saw all on the East Side were models of cleanliness.

The present administration has likewise effected a radical improvement in the general sanitary condition of the poultry slaughter-houses. It is here that upward of 25,000 to 30,000 fowls are killed every day in New York city, and the depart- ment has been making strenuous efforts to compel all slaughter- ing of poultry, just as of beef, to be done in a regular slaughter- house where the proper sanitary conditions can be more easily enforced. The writer made a personal inspection of a number of the largest houses on the East Side and can bear witness to the improved conditions. Even the previous ( Tammany ) inspector confessed that the present state of the houses was 100 per cent, better than ever before.

Mercantile establishments and lodging houses. Finally there are the various mercantile establishments and lodging houses, for which there are six inspectors in Manhattan and the Bronx. Certain defective provisions in the Sanitary Code render it well- nigh impossible for the department to enforce the regulations regarding hours of labor. In the matter of lodging houses, however, the present board has been most efficient. Every house that receives boarders for one night or less than a week is classed as a "lodging house," and must obtain a yearly permit from the Board of Health before it can do any business. Each permit gives the size of the house number of rooms, number of lodgers allowed in each room, etc. and the house must comply with certain rigid sanitary requirements before it can