The daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1848-1851, 1849-03-20
= The Cleanliness of the City,

While speaking of municipal affairs, We may as
we'll give utterancs to the hope that some Of the
$3.50, 900 which are to be spent during the coming
year for necessary current expenses will be de-
voted to the cleansing of the streets of the Second
Municipality. We speak of the Second Munich
palty not because it is in any remarkable degree
dirtier than the rest Of the city, but because we
happen to live in it and contribute our portion To-
wards the payment of the $500 which are TO
be raised, and the $3.50 900 which are to be laid
ont for current necessities. We have had two cpl
denies in rapid sd ccession, and the warm weather
is coming on and with it sickness may be naturally
expected, yet we will venture to say that city
in the civilized world can present so great vari-
ETY. of filth to the EYE, or afford such villainous
compound of bad odors to offend the nose. All
last summer, all winter, and now far advanced
into the spring, it has been the same thing. With
the Mississippi twelve feet above the level of the
city, pressing to come in and give us washing,
we have all the aqueducts closed by which in
former years sire am Of running water was passed
through the street cooling the air and carrying
off the acknowledgements of dirt. The CONNER
cial Water Works, it is true, was granted mo-
nopoly of furnishing water to the people, on con-
dition that it would furnish some to cleanse the
streets and extinguish fires it performs the first
part of the duty by discharging sufficient from each
hydrant in the morning to make respectable mud
puddle in the neig hborhood, and the last by leav
ing all the houses i'm the outskirts to burn down at
their leisure for want of the means to extingush
the flames. In December last, when the cholera
broke out, there Was much talk made about clean
ing the streets, and certainly there was room
enough for display of Skill enterprise and energy
in the undertaking.. A long palaver over our dirty
condition was he ID in the Council, and the cili-
zens began reayto hope that something would be
done at last. But the whole resulted in the ap-
pointment of some dozen additional Commissaries
at handsome salaries, who set themselves most as
siduously about helping their associates do nothing
But as the dirt could not be got rid of, our worthy
Mayor attempted to neutralise its bad effects by
spreading lime in all the public thoroughfares !;
this municipal mortar mandatory, however, did
not seem to produce many happy results, and was
about as wise and judicious scheme as would be
that of the beauty who covered the stains on her
face with powder and paint, instead of removing
them with soap, water and coarse towel.
Whether we shall have any improvement for the
time to come remains to be seen, but we most ear
nestly pray, entreat, beseech, beg that the deposit
taries of municipal power and wisdom will give
this matter little of their attention; they will
find it to their advantage in the end. The people
believe that their health and happiness, the pros
perity of their business and the daily comfort of
their lives, depend upon the removal of the causes
of disease and the objects of hourly annoyance.
Fathers of the city we will praise your finance
reports, if you will have the streets cleaned. We
will applaud your public spirit, sagacity, disin-
terested patriotism, more than Roman virtue, more
than Grecan taste, if you will remove the dirt,
and make it possible for man of sensitive nerves
to pass through your market-houses and other
public places, without being stifed by the effluvia
which sautes him. We will-but what will we
not dove will try to discover merits in the fund
ing system, and figures of rhetoric in your figures
of arithmetic-the last by-he-bye not so difficult,
the hyperbole predominating-if you will set the
cOmmissaries and scavengers to work. There