New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1860-03-08
TIKI PUBLIC HEALTH.

| will venture to test the peoples forbearance; but
if we had the power which they possess, and, as
they have done, deliberately used that power to
| prevent the cleaning of the streets and all i'm
proyement of the sanitary condition OF the City,
we should expect scarcely less than to hang on one
Of the trees before the City Hall. We have shown
again and again that the STRENGTHENING business
has for years been mine of political corruption
hardly less foul than the material denominations with
which it deals. We have shown how, from the
DAYS of Arcularius of Odorous memory to those of
the Grand Sachen, every effort to secure clean
streets at anything Ike a reasonable cost has been
systematically foed by the secret organization in
The City Hail. aided, to the extent OF his power in
most cases, by the City Inspector or the extinct
functionary known as the Commissioner of Streets
| and Lamps. There has not been time IN
ten years when the richest man in New York could,
without bribery, have got the job, if be had
agreed TO do it for nothing, and pledged his entire
fortune as security for its faithful performance.
The truth is that the voting power OF that branch
of the public service is immense, the material
ignorant and easily led, and to secure this vote
tan Aldermen the City has been deliberately,
willfully kept in filth, and the public health
in peril Now and then, when the low Rubbing
thunder of popular indignation began to rise, the
conspirators would relax for moment, and, maxi
ing a virtue of necessity, permit a lew machines TO
take of the Winters refuse; but this season they
have gone step further, and by absolute violence
have stopped the machines and threatened to mob
the owners Of course they are quite willing to go
70 work in their way-to get FIVE thousand of the
halt. lame, and blind voters who put them IN power,
and 90 through the motions of sweeping at al or
pense more than treble that of machine labor.
In the mean time, the warm Spring sun is quick
enipg the foul Accommodations in the streets, and The
air begins 70 be infected. Beyond the maln thor
ouehares in the low quarters of the City, the most
abominabIe sights and smells meet the senses. In
the narrow lanes and blind alleys, where the poorest
classes herd like pigs there are mountains OF oial
of the most dangerous character threatening pesti-
lence ia every FORM This dsgraceiul state OF things
has been growing worse every Spring, and the Peo-
pie have borne it all like patient asses, paying
$500 600 to $780, 200 year for so-called street.
cleaning, half of which has gone, in one way and
another, to keep in power the reckless rogues
who thus make not only the convenience and
decency, but the very lives of the people, subsery-
lent TO their selfsh interests.
Were the evil thus arising to fall upon the
voters alone, it would hardly be worth while to
protest against it. We have heard year after year,
the zane growing about extravaganza and cor
ruption, increased taxation and imbecile govern
ment-the result in every case being the reelection
OF the very worst offenders in consequence OF the
apathy of respectable yoters-and we should hardly
take room to say more but for the reason that the
innocent suffer even more than the guilty. Down
| in these filthy streets aud dens We have dense
population of women and children sckening and
dying in the stencil; dying in most cases for the
want of pure air and water. From tenement
houses and old rookeries kept foul BY the policy or
want of policy of q reckless Government, the
friehtful bill of infant mortality comes up, showing
that of the deaths in such localities, seventy five
per cent are under five years Of age, and nearly
fifty per cent under one year, while in the
genera result for the whole City, We trace
Tie main line of death exactly through the places
where the streets and houses are most filthy.
Shall we longer tolerate such state of danger'
Shall we, for the private benefit of score OF
Aldermen and Councilmen, not only run the risk,
but actually reap the harvest of death in bali the
town. Shallwe, in aplace so admirably situatcdfor
cleanliness and health continue to present ratio
of mortality scarcely known in any town outside
the tropics Can we not, in business so closely
affecting our lives throw off the incubus of partisan
LEGAL patronage, and place the great duty Of pre-
serving life and health upon broader and nobler
basis Shall dead dog tester in the open street,
and no man dare TO remove the carcass until that
amount of patronage" shall be duly assigned to
the Alderman representing the dead dogs Ward
And when goaded by the complaints of the people,
our chief officers do really make an effort to clean
the Streets shall mob of machine voters break up
the machine. sweepers, and practically say to the
people, "You shall have no clean streets unless the
"money goes through certain adhesive hands az
1" heretofore, for the benefit of the party Die, if
"you must; but don't dare TO interfere with the
"swindle of ten years standing whereby We get
"a our power and our bread"
We want, and must have, a thorough reform;
broad comprehensive, practical and stringent code,
dealing not specially with this that branch of the
business, but reaching over and embracing the
whole sanitary field. We want the supervision
Of the public health, or rather the lives of the
people in the care Of some power that cannot be
affected by question between machine and hand
sweeping; we want such power above the reach Of
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