Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/852

 822 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

in Dresden, and then thoroughly soaked by sprinkling wagons, leaving the pavement covered with a soft mud which is scrubbed away to the curbing. The more fluid part runs into the sewers, and the remainder is collected in handcarts. In the busiest thoroughfares this cleaning operation takes place every night, except during frosty weather. Dresden is able to continue the work even when the temperature is slightly below the freezing- point, because she dissolves coarse salt into the water in the sprinkling wagons. An important exhibit made by one of the industrial firms was a full-sized model of a machine to take the place of the hand-workers in the scrubbing of asphalt and wood- block pavements. It is a combination of sprinkler and cleaner. Behind the sprinkler is a rotating rubber "brush" operated by sprockets and chain, as is the brush of an ordinary street-sweeping machine. This does the work of three men. Macadam, and stone-block pavements when too uneven to be swept thoroughly by machine, as well as sidewalks are swept by hand. In most cities the cleaning by hand is done less frequently usually two or three times per week and by daylight.

Keeping the streets clean is, rightly, considered as important as cleaning the streets. The enforcement of laws against littering the streets is, perhaps, especially rigid in Dresden, where even the shaking of a dusting-cloth out of a front window is punished! The advantage of these preventive measures is, however, very noticeable ; and the people are already quite in the habit of "helping to keep the city clean," so that their carefulness has ceased to inconvenience them. Moreover, it is the careful, constant work of flying columns during the day which makes the streets presentable, and which makes possible the thorough, rapid cleaning at night. Permanent attendants stationed in certain streets, or flying columns, remove all refuse and manure from the pavements. During wet weather, when a thin coat of watery slime makes the pavements unsafe, they are scrubbed as after a washing. The same group of men has charge of strewing coarse sand, or fine gravel, to give horses a footing on the smooth, slippery pavements.

In Frankfurt a. M. the sidewalks are cleaned by the landlords