New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1883-07-28
THE WHISTLIYG NUISANCE.

There is some excuse for the small boy il he
goes around with his mouth in constant
| pucker firing his vicious whistle without tune
or time into the ear of his neighborh0od. Ii
keeps him from doing something else with his
mouth aud perhaps if he had not with great
| pains learned to whistle no would have in
vented some other torture for his elders, though
it hardly seems possible that he could have hit
upou worse. He has fixed his features into
temporary deformity and almost blown his eyes
out trying to get the precise quicker and correct
wind-gauge, and he may as well enjoy this &C
cOmplishment as to be learning the fife or beat
ing the drum, neither of which instruments is
considered by the majority of mankind partic-
ulary pleasing at short range. 1t is perhaps
| not impossible TO account for the mature per-
son who at the club or in the hotel reading
room. or in the horse-car or in any public place,
deliberately sets his mouth upon IL pucker and
proceeds to project his breath through the
maddenng orifice. There are such, as every
body knows. Some persons do il while playiD z
| billiards. Worse than these even is the exas-
| perating whIst-player who keeps up low, mo-
| notonOus dTzzle OF whistle while he slowly pores
over his cards and eThausts the patience of his
! fellows. Some of these whistling gentry aspire
| to he tuneful and to pierce their victims ears
with operate airs but most OF them just make
a monotonous noise of it, which you might get
used 10 if they did not once in Il while excite
your expectation of a change by buzzing around
the edge of a tune and then slipping back to the
old awhoo rLee he WhOo." This kind arouse
in the breast of the listener the same feeling
that the ly does that lights on your nose just as
you get your soup spoon to your mouth, and
darts of again before you can hit him; a very
deadly rage.
II Is not impossible, we say, tor account
even for these, inscrutable as at first they
seem. They whistle, it may be, from absence
of mind. That accounts for but does not ex-
cuse them. Nothing hut absence OF body can
do that. One would suppose, after all that has
been suffered by mankind from these whlstling
idiots since time began, that instead of increas
ing the volume and extending tho sphere of this
strident nuisance, some steps wodld have been
taken bsfore this time by National, State and
municipal Legislatures. If not wholly to
abate, at least to limit and restrict it. Instead
of that, some inventor of satanic ingenuity
several years age conceived the idea OF fixing
the small boys pucker in enduring brass and
substituting steam engine for the small boys
lungs Result, tho steam whistle. Now it is
not to he denied that within certain bounds this
abomnahc instrument Is benetcent in its
operations. Even the small boys whistle is
not entirely destitute of uses. IL serves very
we'll to call dog-thouyh there are those who
would be " iling to lose all the dogs, if only the
pickering strings of the small boys mouth
could be permanently severed. IL il said, too,
that it is a great support to the small boy in
going through graveyards, though the necessity
for small boys unaccomDanied by their parents
going through grssoyards at all does not ap-
pear Still it may be conceded that tho small
boys whistle has its use, though not apparent;
that mature persons whistle to occupy minds
that would otherwise be vacant, and that the
improved instrument of torture, the steam
whistle, is useful at sea to wake up passen-
gers after the vessel has been run into, and on
railroads to inform passengers that there will
presently be a collision.
But granting all this, what earthly use is
there IN putting this loud abomination on every
two-canary- blrdpower engine that is built, to
be blown every time the owner goes to or
comes from his meals. Why pepper the face
of creation with it till, following the sun and
keeping company with the hours, it circles the
earth with one continuous and unproken
strain" upon the nerves and the patience of
mankind 1t has no merit but that of making
a noise, and of that it makes altogether more
than is necessary Of what advantage can it
bo in corset factory employing twenty or
thirty girls to blow at z u. m. a whistle that
disturbs the peace for miles, when every girl is
already Ia her place and ready to go to work at
q signal that need disturb nobOdy2 And what
can be the uso in screeching at the same rate at
II noon IA a signal to quit work, when every
soul of them is ready to quit without any signal
at all And why repeat these noises ut l |
o'clock and in the afternoon. 1t seems as
though tho engineers who have these things |
under their control took malicious delight in |
fol cling other people to take notice of their |
going and coming, thoir hours of labor and of |
refresbment, while it has often been noticed |
that locomotive engineers on night trains give |
a peculiarly vicious and prolonged whistle AS
they pass through towns and villages, when |
the only object gained is the waking up of |
peaceful sleepeIs Sufferers from this nuisance |
may be- counted by hundreds of thousands, but |
very rarely are any steps taken to abate it. IL
it were at all necessary it might be tolerated,
but ninety-nine out of q hundred of the
steam whistles on factories aud workshops in
cities and towns are utterly unnecessary and
ought to be suppressed by law.
The Steam Whistle Must Go.
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Even Virginia Bourbous make some progress.
For proof whereof their late discovery that it would