The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1869-07-10
TIE PUBLIC gEiLTI.
What Have the Board Of Health Done GA
View Of the Fourth aud Sixth Wards.

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| What Have the Board Of Health Done "a
View Of the Fourth aud Sixth Wards.
Complaints were many and heavy against the ad-
minstraton OF the health laws while the Street In
spector was entrusted with their execution. 1t was
bad. there Is no doubt about it. But how 1t now
| The people grumbled then, as they had right to-
The streets were not cleaned. The refuse garbage
and Nth were left to MI the air with pestiferous
| stencil. This was bad, and the people had q just
right to complain.
change was made. BOARD of Healthn was
authorized by the Legislature The Street Inspec-
| tors ONCE, which had become ''sench In the
nostrils'' Of the people under BODIES management,
was abolished All hoped that now would come the
time when clean streets should be the order and
filth the exception. The "Health Boardn was well
coined with general applause, and it was believed
that with their advent to power the city might hence
forth rely upon cleanliness being enforced upon all
people and in all Streets
But the city is not cleaner. The people find out
as month passes after month and year after year.
that the BOARD OF Healthy is but very little II any
Improvement upon the old street Inspector. the
Board made very fierce onslaught In the start on
tenement houses. slaughter houses, cellar tenements
and many other similar nuisances. They over
wbelmed the press with intermnable reports OF
Hypnotic diseases" and OF the percentage OF deaths
to be ascriDed to 'zymonc" causes. The statisti-
lists of deaths and classifying them in the most ap-
proved order OF the circumlocution office. Their
legal ADVISERS a We're Kept busy preparing and the
adopting sheath ordinances" nnumerabie, 30 as
TO MI a ponderous volume by this time and larger
In number and more intricate in substance than any
one man can attempt to remember and obey. But
where Is the cleanliness OF the city? Where is what
the Health Board' was specially organized forP
Where is the improvement it was hoped to accom-.
plished by pacnga "BOard" in the stea of "Street
INSPECTOR, Are the streets cleanr Is there no
point breeding disease In the city? Are the men,
bers Of the Board" attentive to their duties9
From time to time the HERALD has called the at
posing the so-dtsant Health Board to nuisances in
various parts or the city, From Fifty-tOurth street
and First north Of this to Hae s syee
and south of 1t to the Battery, the HERALD has de-
scrlbed very pest holes which the Health Board has
overlooked and OF which by their paid inspectors they
should have been informed long ago What have
they donei Actually nothing, except drawing their
resolutions worth not the paper on which they are
wrnten spending money TO pay INSPECTORS and their
1 9sa ana taxing AK view Of
on things Of secondary interest But the city dirty
many OF the streets are but so many death BEDS and
the fault WhyY
THE FOURTH AND SIXTH WARDS
Let any one 60 into the Fourth or sixth ward
and he VIII there nnd streets In condition enough
10 make s,es SICK BY merely passing through Taxs
example, or the eastern end OF Frankfort street,
and any other one Of the many small streets which
sstonshed at the mass Of rubbish and nitn which
has accumulated there, and 1t may be possible has
been neaped up for years, large number Of cellar
dwellings, are occupied In this neghborhood. From
the cutters and the sidewalks the murky sediment
OF this nth enters down the steps and through the
ratings into these subterraneum bodies, and the ex
balatlons OF all this peHtential aggregation filth
produce sickness and death. But the "Health
B0ard' are not moving. What do they propose
to dor
The Sixth ward is worse yet. Going through Mott,
Baxter and Elizabeth streets one IS stunned by the
smells arising from the cutters and the heaps OF fer
menting straw, old boots and the Carcases Of ami
dunghill worse than any place In the city On the
corner OF Bayard and Baxter there must be, some
wnere IN the neighb0rhOOd o perfect hole or recep-
tacle OF putrld matter as the smell that reaches ones
nose on passing by ts reminding one OF the compost
factory over on the Jersey fats. On the corner OF
Centre street and Leonard one corner, the north
east 10 one foot higher than the southeast corner
anu whenever there Is heavy rain all the garbage
nom Baxter street ts washed down Leonard to
centre, and there the houses and cellars the east
Sue opposite the fombs, are almost flied with the
ntny stun thus brought by the surface water unable
to fnd another vent.
WIN not the Health Board move in the matter Do
something 10 alleviate the wrongs OF which the
citizens have just right to complaint In former
years. with all the shortcomings OF the Street In
spectOr, there was some effort made every summer
to neutralize the influence Of decOmposing matter In
the streets. Chloride OF lime was plent1fuly dis
trbuted the cutters were well sprinkied with It, 30
that the bad Smells the miasm8 created by the stag
nant pools were rid OF their deadly poison But
even this the BOARD Of Healthn negiecttnQ.
They should do something to the lives OF the
OF DEATH"
Smallpox In the City.
The officials OF the Board of Health utter assur.
ances OF the rapid decrease Of smallpox in the CITY,
The disease few days ago was reported to be on