The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1891-06-06
CLEANING THE STREETS.

There is a great deal of theorizing on the
subject of cleaning the streets. One would
suppose from the treatises which find their
place in the daily papers that stTeet-sweep-
ing was kindred in nature to that Of con-
structing flying machines. II is believed
that streets may be swept as it is believed
that a machine can be constructed to fly,
but only little progress has yet been made
in either enterprise. Mr. Max Pepper has
iuss returned from New York, where he has
taken object lessons in the art of getting as
much money as possible for doing certain
work and leaving as much as possible of the
work undone. 1t was not necessary for Mr..
Pepper TO 60 to New York for object lessons
of this character, as some rather striking
ones are afforded in this city. There are
wide, handsome and nearly level streets in
San Francisco where a street-Sweeping ma
chine and accompanying carts would attract
as much attention as an aerial c0ntrivance
cleay ing the atmosphere. y resident OF one
Of these handsome semi business streets in
the Western Addition informed THE CALL
a few days since that the sea breeze was the
only street-sweeper he had seen in that
street in the last four months. The sea
breeze comes with great regularity, and
always finds matter to work upon. The
value of the sea braeZe as Streat SvtoeI'ar
Is, however, somewhat impaired by the Iact
that no dumping-ground is provided 10
absorb the debris. The wind works upon
the same matter day after day, hurts
it into stores, bakeries, butcher-shops
and ladies' faces. This condition OF things
prevails, our informant says, in all the
streets in that part OF the city. Mr.. Pepper
has discovered what is called patrol system
in New York which he thinks may be
adopted in this city with benefit, both 10
street-sweeping contractors and the resi-
dents of the city. The patrol system places
one person in charge of a certain number OF
front feet and holds that person responsible
for its condition. But if responsibility sets
as lightly upon the shoulders Of the man
who contracts to keep a part Of one street
clean as il does upon the man whose con-
tract covers the entire city, the patrol sys-
TEN will be found to be defective. The
system much needed in San Francisco, az
in New York, is one that will get dollar:
worth of work for dollar Under our pres
ent system 70 cents is paid for supervision
and . for actual work. A four-dOllar man
is employed to see that a tw0-dollar MAJ
does not idle away more than one-half of the
time Any plan of street-sweeping that WI
| secure a reasonably honest expenditure OF
the money at the disposal of the depart
ment will produce sati sfactOry results. The
| trouble lies rather IN the recognized usage
| than in the officials. Street Superintend
ents would, as a rule, like to make gon'
record if they could. But that department
| has for years been required to support so
| called political "workers," who take NJ
other part in STRENGTHENING than to draw
salaries from the department. Now tina
MI. Pepper has returned from his Easter
tour Of observation it is possible that hi
branch of the Street Department willpu IL
an occasional appearance in other than Mar
ket and Kearny streets.