New-York tribune., 1867-08-20
A PANK OFFENSF.

Tho cholera will not be kept ont OF New
York by testimonials from the CitizenS Asso.
citation. nor by +, tabular statement of The
number of men and carts employed by Con.
tractor Whiting, even although that numbs,
sbould exceed the amount of material employed
Inv Brown, Devoe g. Knapp, or the eminent
public citizen, Mr.. BOole. Disease cares nothing
for comparisons. 1t wants positive flth, and
IL finds it in abundance in this cOntract-ridden
city. Filth is the forerunner, the breeder, and
the eo-worker with pestilence, and it is beyond
question that, in this view, New-York street,
are full of allies of the cholera. The frequent
bulletins from the Office of the Street-Clean.
ing Commission assert that the streets are
cleaned according to contract, and to-day
we have the assurance (by which the Commits
sion justified to themselves the passing of the
contractors semi-mOnthly accOunt) that those
merchants of the lower part of the city who
complained of the condition of certain business
streets did not know what they were talking
about. They complained that the streets had
not been cleaned, to which the Commissioner
respond that they were swept in the night,
when the merchants did not see the scavengers.
Such an explanation is an insult to the intelli-
gence of the complainants. sweeping, Of
which no evidence can be found in the morn
ing, must have been q poor nights work. The
tidy housekeeper who employs laundress to
wash the family linen wants the evidence Of
her own senses TO decide when it is well done.
A return of the dirty garments, with the plea
that they were washed in the night, will be
neither satisfactory to the employer nor remu.
nerative to the servant. l.t
The street-cleaning contract is faulty. IL is too
indefinite in its requirements 1t would be hard
to frame a contract which should sufficiently
meet every emergency, or to find contractor
who would not take advantage of every omis-
sion of specific instructions. "Why then" ask
the apOlogists for the delinquent official, do
"you attack the contracting party who fulnlls the
Imperfect agreementfn Because he does not
fulfill the contract, bad as it is. Because that
contract specifies that call paved streets
"apd AL lanes, alleys, cutters, wharves, piers,
land heads of slips shall be well, faithfully,
"and thoroughly cleaned at least once in each
"week;n and there are whole blocks which
are not thoroughly cleaned, nor anything
like it. Because the contract says that
"the sweepings shall be Immediately removed
and they are not removed. Because the
document requires that no deposit OF dirt
or garbage shall be made within the city eX-
cept to fill sunken lots, and there is at the foot
of Twenty -fourth-st a huge pile of garbage
which is dumped there to be sold to the Long
Island farmers, an inspector having his office
within fifty feet thereof. Because it Is further
stipulated that the cutters must be washed
after the removal of mud or other deposits
and this Is very rarely done.
1t is clear, then, that the letter Of the con-
tract is not fulfilled. Its spirit is equally
evaded. The ninth specification of the con-
tract declares the purpose of the contract to
be "to secure clean streets in the city, and
protect the public health, at limited expen-
"diture of money" Clean streets are not
secured, the public health is not protected, and
there is far more limited expenditure Of
labor than of money.
The invariable answer of contractor and
Commission to all complaints has been that the
pavements are bad, and that the residents use
no care in the disposition of their slops and
garbage This is no excuse whatever. The
same state of affairs existed when the contract
was taken. Judge Whiting Is paid nearly hall
q million dollars for cleaning the rough streets,
which are inhabited by New~York tenement
dodgers, not the smooth highways of Phila-
delphia, nor the moral ones of Boston. He
surveyed the field, undertook the work, bought
the contract, end is paid his money by
board that, by such payment for unperformed
labor, shares with the contractor the respon-
sibility for the pestilence which will walk at
noon-day through the foul streets and lanes OK