Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 38.djvu/773

Rh is necessary, and police justices must promptly punish offenders against the cleanliness of the streets, and severely, too, in case they are repeated. With proper action and co-operation of police officers and police justices, the great and most important obstacle to clean streets in New York can be removed.

When this is accomplished, the following will be necessary to entirely secure the desired object:

1. The laws and sanitary ordinances should be amplified and extended, if necessary, to cover minutely all subjects incidental and necessary to clean streets. Such laws and ordinances should be so broad, plain, and explicit that every citizen would know his duty in the premises, that every police officer would be certain when it was proper to make an arrest for violations, and that no police justice could fail to punish upon proper evidence.

2. The ash and garbage receptacles, in which the refuse of buildings and the sweepings from the sidewalk should be carefully placed, should be well made of galvanized iron, of style and size prescribed by ordinance, and they should be portable, absolutely tight, with covers, and the covers should not be removed except when necessary. These receptacles should be placed for removal in the areas within the stoop lines, or in some other convenient place, but never on the sidewalks; and rag-pickers and scavengers should not be allowed to disturb their contents. The ashes and garbage should be removed daily at a fixed and regular hour from every building, in absolutely tight carts, of size and style prescribed by ordinance, with covers so arranged that no part of the contents can escape. Carts for the transportation of street or cellar dirt, manure or other refuse, should also be of uniform size and style, tight and covered, and specially constructed and adapted to their respective purposes.

Public cremation of garbage, or its utilization by some of the known methods, should be introduced in New York without delay. Proper buildings for this purpose should be constructed upon the water front, conveniently located in different parts of the city. In many cities in this country the different processes are used for this purpose with satisfactory results. It is several years since the New York Board of Health demonstrated that refuse animal matter could be safely and inoffensively utilized within the city limits, and the metropolis should not be last to avail itself of improved methods for disposing of its garbage. When arrangements are made for the public cremation or utilization of garbage, the ashes and garbage should be placed in separate receptacles, and should be removed separately, the ashes being disposed of for filling sunken lots, redeeming marshy ground, and making new land in the city and vicinity. For a long period in the future, street dirt, and ashes free from garbage, will be