New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1880-05-16
TYPHUID ATSUMMERING PLACES.

The leading hotels at Rockaway have inau-
gurated a system Of thorough drainage for the
removal Of garbage and other nuisances during
the coming Summer. Now is the time to take
such preventive measures, if they are to DO
taken at all. But their example has not been
followed as yet BY any other seaside watering
place. THE TRIBUNE sounded warning on
this subject last year, which was mheedcd; in
consequence, typhoid fever broke out near the
close Of the season in one or two Of the largest
of these resorts.
Most Of these Summer cities are in the hands
of stock companies, who bought the land
originally for Il trhe, erected hotels, laid out
avenues etc, and afterward have only been
concerned how best to advertise their specu-
lation, and to draw crow DIS into 1t, so as to in
crease their dividends. They have not so far
troubled themselves materially as to whether
the crowds got rid of the ennui or thrilling
physical ailments which they brought with them
to the eea-shOrc, or died of the malarial and
typhoid fevcrs which they found there. The
most ordinary common sense should have
taught them that health was, after all, the
capital on which all Sumnlcrlng resorts depend
for success 1t is the supposed curative prop
critics of the air from the sea and pine woods
combined that have crowded Atlantic City dur
ing Winter as we'll as Summer; and it is not
the religious exercises which draw the swarm
ing thousands to Ocean Grove in August so
much as the chance of bcncfiting their bodies
10y salt water and air. AS soon as n watering
place is rcputcd maariOus, its fate is sealed.
Neither religion nor fashion will make it draw.
Lots Will fall in the market from the thousands
back to the tens faster even than they rose.
How are these towns to escape malaria and
typhoid if they are left in their present con-
dui0n7 They are built on a bed of sand,
Porous as n sponge. All the garbage, niGht-s0il
ana dccaycd vcgetablcs-the refuse of large
city for four months, in fact-are deposited on
top of this sand to rot in the hot sun and fill the
mir with dcatl-breedng poison still worse to
be washed by every rain down into the sand,
where the poison pcrcoatcs directly into the
water springs Water, as our readers know,
runs 80 near the surface in this sandy bed that 1t
can be obtained by sinkinga pump only eight or
twelve feet. The visitors to these places
therefore, in August and september, are liter
ally drinking IN the disease thrown off by the
rotten vegetables and the past crowds OF the
whole Summer. Already, ONE or two years
back. in Mount Desert, Ocean Grove, and ono
or two smaller places, typhoid fever prevailed
during September to an alarming extent
1t is no doubt dilicult and costly to establish
o proper system of drainage in these mushroom
cities, and the managers think apparently 1t
will not pay for the expense, n they are only
occupied tor few months Of the year. But we
fear that the coming Summer will convince
them, 10y sharp, terrible lesson, whether 1t
will pay or not The absence of frost and
bracng air this Winter has left our people
more accessible to attacks of all sporadic and
contagious diseases. DphthoriI and fcyrrs Of
all kinds are already on the increase. If these
great resorts for health pleasure and re-
ligion on tho coast are left in their usual foul
condition. they will, 10y the time the hot suns
Of next August are upon us, be proper nurseries
and brccd,ng-placcs Of death. Underground
drainage, though costly. Is in the end the only
effective remedy. The conveyance of garbage,
etc, In BcOws outside of the surf, to dump II in
the ocean, seldom answers, as the sea has an
ugly trick of returning all such tribute to the
land again.