New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1877-08-27
THE KJoKKENMoDDING or NEW YORK.

THE KJOKKENMODDING or NEWYORK
The prehistoric inhabitants of the sea coast
of Denmark, unnumbered centuries ago, used
to deposit the refuse of their kitchens IN a
common heap by the shore The placid oyster
and the piquant periwinkle furnished chiel
part of their simple diet, and our ancestors,
squat upOn their launches at their cabin
doors, tossed the shells upon the public garb-
age pile The bones of bass, the feathers
and claws of fowl, and all the fragments OF
food which even the strong stomachs OF the
st0ne-age rejected, were added to the deposit,
until the mound grew so big and so putrld
that it shut out the view of the ocean and
poisoned the salt air. Then the vii
layers moved somewhere TO windward and
began new heap. To this day the
shell mounds of Denmark attract the study Of
the antiquary, and learned men, cropping IN
them for bones and implements OF flint, have
given them them the name of kj0kkenmGdding
or kitchen-refuse heaps.
According to Sir Charles Lyell, "btchen-
"middensn of the same sort have been found
on the coasts of Massachusetts, and Georgia,
where they speak to us of an unknown
race that preceded the red Indians. 1t
is getting to be an interesting question
whether the adventurous seaman who shall re-
discover America fifty or sixty centuries hence,
will not he as strongly impressed by the mas
tiness of this generation as we are by the habits
of heearly Danes and theprehistOric Bostonians.
Probably the people who left the fragments OF
their dinners thousands of years ago on the
shores of the North Sea, had neither Street
Cleaning Bureau nor a Board of Health, but
we might be excused for suppOsing, from an
inspection of the relics, that they had both.
Between the two, New-YOrk is accommodating
range of kj6kkenm0dding which promise
to put the shell heaps of Jutland to
shame. Every day the Street Clean
ing Bureau collects $500 cart-loads of kitch-
en- refuse and carefully deposits 1t in front
of our doors A huge mound of bones. ashes,
rotten vegetables, decompOsed meat, broken
bottles, old shoes, miscellaneous mud and hoop
skirts, has been erected on Harlem Flats. An
other has been constructed at the foot of West
Sixty-sixth-st. A fringe of filth has been adj
ded TO Wards Randalrs and Blackwers Is
lands and the savOry deposit has been drop
ped along the green shores of the Harlem.
The oysters died in their beds as the garbage
scOvs navigated the East River, unloading as
they hoated on and the people of the Long
Island villages lefttheir settlements, and like the
primitive Danes, moved to windward. Then
the boats began to pollute the beautiful banks
of the Hudson; promising kitchenmid-
den was rapidly rising opposite the pretty
old town of Dobbs Ferry, when the local
Board of Health interfered and drove the
purveyors of pesulence away. They sailed out
I Do MI IronpaH hair ar
four thousand cart-loads daily into the blue
waters, where the tides and the waves took
ND good share and cast it on the
beach at Coney Island. Dead dogs and
everything else that would float came tlIm-
bling ashore among the batherS, and what
would not float remained to ObStruct the en-
trance to the harbor. Here again the local
authorities at last interfered, and at present
the boon of bones, ashes, decOmposing cats
and scrapings of a million dinner-plates is
bestowed upon the happy inhabitants of Hun
ter's Point and the other places about New
town Creek.
Thus it will be seen that Ncw-York is en-
comprised on all sides by stenches aud gradu
ally shutting herself out from all the rest of
the world by line of garbage-heaps. 1t is
impossible to approach the city from any
quarter without encOuntering these offensive de-
fences it will soon be impossible to find a
spot within two hours journey of the metrop-
oils where one can draw breath of pure air.
The Street Cleaning Bureau, after years of
fighting and discussion, is apparently as far
AS ever from solving the garbage prob
lem. It's only policy is to pick out
some pleasant suburban settlement, and
dump there until driven away by an
insurrection of the inhabitants, when it repeats
the experiment elsewhere. But this cannot go
on forever. If we cannot remove our kitchen
middens we shall have to do as orr ances-
tors dd-go away and leave Them But it is
queer commentary on our civilization that at
this latter end of the nineteenth century we
are no further advanced in the art of getting
rid of oyster-shells than those unspeakable
savages of the stone-age.