Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/851

 THE FIRST GERMAN MUNICIPAL EXPOSITION 821

There is a recent tendency to include the flushing of sewers as a part of the work of the street-cleaning department.

Street-cleaning may be considered under two headings : clean- ing the streets and keeping the streets clean. The cleaning of the streets is very thorough and of frequent occurrence. In Berlin the chief streets are cleaned six times a week, the majority of the rest, three times, and the remainder streets in outlying districts where the amount of traffic is minimal at least once a week In Frankfurt a. M. the conditions are similar. In Dresden every street in the city is cleaned every day in the week with the exception of the macadam roads which are not under the control of the street-cleaning department, but are cleaned by the same gang which cares for the maintenance and repair of them. The cleaning of the streets is done at night or in the early morning hours, in order to interfere with traffic as little as possible. Stone-block pavements are cleaned by machines. Frankfurt a. M. employs eight gangs, each consisting of fifteen men, with one sprinkling wagon, two street-sweeping machines, and two collect- ing wagons. Each gang is in charge of a boss (Rottenfuhrer] and his assistant. The sprinkling wagons start out at 9 130 P. M., the sweeping machines at 10 P. M., the collecting wagons at 10 : 30 p. M. The men begin work at 10 p. M. and work, with a pause of an hour and a half, until 8 A.M. In Dresden the cleaning is done between 4 A. M. and 3 : 30 P. M. ; in winter, 5 A.M. and 4 130 P. M. The chief thoroughfares are all cleaned during the first five hours of work, so as to be clean before heavy traffic begins. The street cleaning department of Dresden exhibited a most interesting and complete equipment of machines, utensils, and tools. This department uses interchangeable sprockets on the sweeping machines, and is thus able to raise the gear as the brushes are worn down. The more rapid the revolution thus given the brushes makes the old ones clean as thoroughly as do new ones. Eighteen-centimeter brushes can thus be used advantageously until they are worn down to five-centimeters, giving an average duration of 150 working hours to the brushes. Dresden saves 4,000 marks a year by thus using up the brushes. Asphalt and wood-block pavements are washed. They are first swept by hand