Page:McClure's Magazine v9 n3 to v10 no2.djvu/198

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Health itself credits a great share of the gain to this department.

An effort has been made to account for the better work done on the streets solely by the larger amount of money expended. But in the matter of cleaning there has been no such increase of cost. In studying this it is proper to exclude the cost of "snow removal," and of the purchase of "new stock and plant," bought for permanent use and to repair waste due to the work of previous years. The expenditure for all other items, for all really "street-cleaning" accounts, was as follows for five years past:

Furthermore, during this administration the employment of private ash-carts and private sweepers has greatly decreased, as people have found that the department service could be relied on.

However, suppose the work has cost more. It has been well and honestly done, and it has produced the results cited above. I accept cheerfully full responsibility for the outlay, and I should gladly spend still more if it were needed for the good of the people. And, after all, how much did it cost all the people of this city for all that was done in 1896, including the removal of snow and the renewal of "stock and plant"? The total sum is $3,283,853.90. And how much is that?

It is almost exactly three cents per week for each one of us!

The progress thus far made is satisfactory. An inefficient and ill-equipped working force long held under the heel of the spoilsman has been emancipated, organized, and brought to its best. It now constitutes a brigade three thousand strong, made up of well-trained and disciplined men, the representative soldiers of cleanliness and health—soldiers of the public—self-respecting and life-saving. These men are fighting daily battles with dirt, and are defending the health of the whole people. The trophies of their victories are all about us, in clean pavements, clean feet, uncontaminated air, a look of health on the faces of the people, and streets full of healthy children at play.

This is the outcome of two and a half years of strenuous effort—at first against official opposition and much public criticism. Two and a half years more, with a continuance of the present official favor and universal public approval, should bring our work to its perfection. It should make New York much the cleanest, and should greatly help to make it the healthiest, city in the world. By that time its death rate should be reduced to fifteen per thousand—which would mean for our present population a saving of sixty lives per day out of the 140 daily lost under the average of 25.78 (1882–94).

I venture to predict a recovery, from the sale of refuse material, of at least one-half the cost of the whole work.