The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-09-27
SPIRIT OF THE PRESS.
Il EDITORIAL Opinions of the Leading Journals
Upon Current TOpics-COmpiled Every
Day for the Evening Telegraph.
CLEAN THoROUGHFAREs.

There is nothing, in its way, more curious
and at the same time more mortifyinp than
the chronic wall which is raised by the news
papers over the condition of the streets of
some of our principal cities. OF our own great
metropolis we say little. The cry for cleanli
ness here is ancient and enduring, and il
promises, with good reason, to endure for an
indefinite period to come. We are hardened
to unhealthiness; we are matriculated
in mud; and stranger might suppose
that, like the denizens of some African
village, we actually gloried in garbage
New York is like Ephraim; but who is
there that did not think that in
Quaker Philadelphia the fine and intimate re-
lation between cleanliness and godliness, so
generally recognized by Quaker practice
would be sacredly regarded? Alas that it
should not be so! A newspaper of that city
emts loudly the old familiar complaint ''It
is fact, says this journal, ''that in our best
and most aristocratic quarters, as well as in
the poorest and meanest portions of our city,
these sidewalk cutters are to be found with all
their nasty accompaniments Shade of
William Penn! We, the descendants of the
hard-scouring Dutch, begin to feel that not
we alone are degenerate.
Municipal uncleanliness, however, is the rule
all over the world. In Paris and London the
evil man be banished to holes and by-ways, as
an untidy housewife sweeps her dust into a
corner but the evil still exists. The bad
smells of Cologne have been rhymed of by
no less poet than Coleridge. In Rome the
street-dirt has been often described in a way
which showed the reader that itfairly beggared
description. The domain which still bows to
the name of Mohammed contents itself with
washing its hands. The horrible condition of
the HIGHWAYS of Madrid and Lisbon need not
be descanted upon. 1t is probable that, in
comparison with those of most other parts of
the world the streets of our cities are remark
ably clean.
This, however, is not enough. What is
wanted is not comparative but positive clean
illness. This is what may be justly demanded
of us, partly because, unlike foreign cities,
we have a very small dirt-making, pauper
population; partly because every inhabitant
understands certain simple sanitary laws; and
lastly, because we cheerfully pay for highway
cleanliness, and are defrauded when we do
not obtain it. An Eastern prince who by ex-
orbitant taxation wrings the last piastre
from the pockets of his miserable slaves, may
care little through what reeking lanes and
high-smelling alleys they crawl to their labors
He at least has broad and stately pleasure
grounds; he has gardens "bright with sinuous
rills,
"where blossoms many an incense-bearing tree"
His sacred foot presses not his nice nose
smells not, his august eye sees not the abomi-
nations of the streets. But here, where all
alike, be they rich or poor, are princes, the
streets are the outdoor domain of the people,
They must use them for business, and very
often they must seek them for recreation. If
they acquiesce in uncleanliness, so much the
worse for them and SO much the worse for
all of us! Apart from fear of the stalking
pestilence and thousand wasting forms of
endemic and epidemic disease, we may an
ticipate general coarseness of character and
an habitual stoldity of understanding. The
want of neatness without will inevitably be
followed by want of neatness within, and in
side untidiness will emulate the great outside
sluttishness.
Again, who can say how great may be the
danger of solecistic streets? We may line
our thoroughfares with stately buildings, ex-
hibiting, if not the graces of architecture, at
least the charm of costliness; richly orna-
mented walls may rise upon either side over
the dubious pavement walkers in princely
ralment may pick their way, while below all
this pretentlous magniicence reeks the fever
fostering corruption This is the platter
once more made clean upon the outside
This is the sepulchre once more whitened
This is to teach men and women that show
is better than substance, that pretensor
is OF greater price than performance
that to seem is nobler than to be, and that in
congrulty is the best symmetry. A CITY which
unswept and ungarnished by tidiness, is lik,
one OF those wretched women who hawl
their favors up and down the pavement in al
the glory OF rainbow haberdashery Thos
who think that there is no latent but still
poisonous immortality in this perpetually oh
truslve 1ncongruity, have not well considere
by what subtle influences that which we cal
the public mind is either well or i'll educated
1t is i'll to teach the people that display is O
the first consequence, and that show and shar
are better than the weightier matter of truth
full consistency.
These speculations may seem somewha
abstract, but there is no abstraction in tn
fact that filthy streets are the outward an,
visible sign of an immensely larger amour
of uncleanliness which is hidden from tn
public eye. If the municipality will not Sc
the people good example upon its Owl
dunghill, if we may say so, thousands O
householders, or half, or quarter, or eighth
or sixteenth householders, will continue Il
MAINTAIN domiciles which are mere breeding
nests OF typhoid and of dysentery. The chill
dren Will continue to die like rot-stricker
sheep.yictims of our ignorance, our avaric,
or recklessness. Neglected streets swell th,
ollls OF mortality in more ways than one.
Something we might add by way of appea
to civic pride. There is a little village il
Holland, remarkable neither forts magnifcen
buildings, nor its great wealth, nor for an
historic associations, which has made itsel
famous throughout the world, but simply fo
its cleanliness of which, indeed traveller
have told almost fabulous stories, with other
which are extremely amusing. There is n
danger of our lapsing into any excess of lu
tration; but it would or shonld be gratifying
If travellers, while they recorded our wealth