The Dallas weekly herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1885, 1881-04-28
CLEAN UP.
measure.

Wohbuto.
CLEAN UP.
We have now a new city council and a
new health officer, and IT is not inappropriate
to again submit few remarks upon the i'm
p~ortance and necessity Of cleaning the streets,
cutters, by ways, private places, and the
entire city generally. But before we proceed
further, permit us to say right here, that we
do not mention the fact that we have a new
health officer in q sense or spirit of reflection
upon the retiring health officer. 1t affords
US oil asure to bear testimony to the eff
aciency, the zeal and energy OF DR..
Carter during the two terms that he filled
the position Of health officer of Dallas. lie
was faithful to tine trusts reposed in him,
prompt in all his duties, able in their per
Torrance and earnest 10 his endeavors for
the sanitary improvement Of the city, don (
all that could be done with the facilities alt
the assistance given him by the city author
ties. We have taken occasion a number Oh
times to speak upon the necessity OF cleanll-
ness in the city, but never before has that
necessity been more urgent than now.
We do all know what an unusual fall
winter and spring we have had. We do all
know how strange and unusual have been
the meteorological influences and effects,
and we all know how unhealthy it has been
all over the country, what peculiar and fatal
maladies have been reported throughout not
only this country but Europe and Asia.
For months past idiesyncratic influences
have prevailed upon the elements, and the
winds seem to bear on their bosoms the seeds
of sickness, contagion and death. These
seeds need but a resting place to germ
mate, take root and bear a
fruitful, frightful harvest OF pes
thence and death. In the filth accumul-
atoms of cities they make their nurseries; in
the cesspools of rottenness and corruption
they bud and bloom, and as the crop of dra'
gon teeth sow by Cadmus brought forth a
horde of armed men, to carry devastation and
obstruction and terror into the countries
round about them, so do they send out e
legion of demons to clutch at the vitals OF
strong men, to daily with the cheeks OF far
women and TO impress their kisses upon the
lips of innocent childhood. Let the city be
cleaned up. The warm days of spring
are slready upon US, and
the sultry suns of summer will
soon be here. Looking at the matter from
a business standpoint, considering it in the
light of dollars and cents, it will not pay this
city to rem ain in its filth, and the following
from the Philadelphia Press is in.point:"..The
decadence of Philadelphia as the commercial
metropolis of the country and the growth OF
New York into its present proportions had
their origin in precisely the same conditions
in this city more than four-scoro years ago
Philadelphia, in 1850, when the first official
census of the country was taken, was the
greatest of American cities. Between l76O.
and 1900 the city, however, was the prey OF
its neglect of sanitary regulations as we'll as
of its own enterprise, which introduced,
through its West India trade, the yellow fe-
yer and other tropical epidemics. The
plague ragged here in the years 1893, '97 and
'98, carrying of, it is estimated, twelve
thou sand lives, driving our trade to New
York and other ports, and destroying the
commercial supremacy which had been un-
disturbed from the founding of the city,"
To show whst the conditions are in New
York to which the Press alludes in the above,
we take the following from the New York
Herald of the Goth inst, in an article in
which it animsdverts upon the ~outrageously
lllby condition Of that city: 1--WE have it
on the authority of the most eminent physi-
clans Of the city, and their opinion is sus-
tained by the whole profession, that New
York is now on the verge of a pestilence-
that, in fact, premonitory symptoms OF a
plague have already appeared. The alarm
ing increase in the death rate, to which we
have called attention as emphatically as
possible, shows that this is not Q sensational
or exaggerated view of the situation, as the
political strikers at Albany and their sup
por,ers are endeavoring to make the people
believe. A pestileDce in New York this
summer would mean the loss OF tens of
thousands of lives and of hundreds if not
thousands of millions of dollars. Are the
republican politicians of Albany prepared to
tske the responsibility of bringing such a
calamity upon the first city Of the continen,Y'
Already has the cholera made its appear
sucs in Nes York city, but a few sporadic
casas Il is true, but epidemics always begin
that way. Governor Roberts WAS but a few
ds,. ago in consultation with the Lealth
b1sFd If Galveston on the subject Of quar-
ssdDe, grave fears exislir G that the state msy
D. tarsutsned with yellow fever this summer
through the line Of steamers recently
estsblshed between Galveston and Vera
Cruz, and New Orleans by way of the Texas
and New Orleans railroad, and with the
memories Of Memphis. Granada Mississippi
spd New Orleans but year
,vo 400 sfIl fresh 10 our minds