Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1892-09-29
WHERE STREETS ARE CLEAN.
Berlin and Paris Lead the World In
This Respect.



The Work Must be Constantly Attended
to--How II is Managed in These Two
Great European Cities.
Paris is said to be the cleanest city in
the world and Berlin iscleaner than Paris,
Paris is well kept, but Berlin is beauti-
fully kept. There are neglected spots
in Paris-old quarters which cannot be
frightened nor made to shine with
cleansing. In the German capital there
is not one street that is not clean, essen
TALLY clean. You could picnic anywhere
and lunch with both comfort and safety
on the asphalt pavement, the cobble-
stones or along the curbstones.
The STRENGTHENING force of Ber-
lin includes ZOO men, 10 boys and
100 women. These people work in
squads from q. m. until p. M, seven
days iii the week, eight hours day.
Women are employed in the city
squares. They sweep the turf, rake
the walks, water the grass and sidewalks
and keep the chairs and benches clean.
They usually work in couples and
while one is busting the rustic furniture
and the fountain or statuary the other
rakes up the paper, sigar stumps and
Then both take broom and sweep the
lawn as they would carpet. The
sprinkling is done with couple of rub
Der hose, fastened to movable iron
pipes, and when finished the square is
clean and inviting and the four sur
| rounding streets are cooled by the water
that has been played all over them,
trees, turf, cobbles and all. Twice a
| day these female street cleaners are at
work, usually from to II a. m. and
from 1 until p. IN. They work Sun
days as well as week days, and receive
| $2.45 week.
WOMEN STREET CLEANERS.
Then there are about so women also
employed by the STRENGTHENING service,
in the toilet cabinets, whose duty it is to
keep the premises clean, laundry the
hand towels and see that there is soar
on the Wristbands. They, too, receive
| $2.45 week, and an occasional fee fol
brushing Il trailing dress or muddysshoes
almost doubles that sum.
The boys in the streets cleaning service
wear uniforms like the men, consisting OF
a black jeans blouse, white crash breeches
top boots, with high heels and soleS
an inch thick, and leather caps with the
name of the department over the peak.
| The men get $3.50 week and the boys
receive $4.20 week. The little fellows
are often very small, but none of them
| are less than 16 years of age.
These nine hundred odd cleaners are
| so splendidly organized that the city
seems to keep itself clean. To locker
on the work is child's play. First row
of men, six abreast, will walk up an
avenue pushing coarse brooms or rubber
| scrapers before them. Behind them will
be six more men pushing finer broom
bristles; the next line will have still
| finer implements and when the fourth
set of brooms have passed the street will
be clean. At each corner the wheel
barrows appear, and the dirt is shoveled
into them before it has had chance tc
be piled. To guard against the scatter.
ing winds the streets are well sprinkled
in dry weather, and flying dust is one
\ of the nuisances with which the Der.
liners are not familiar.
HoUsEHoLDERs CLEAN THE STREETS.
In the little German cities between
Berlin and Munich the same ad
mirable system prevails, Even in the
| Thuringia, where the cities arc toe
poor to support STRENGTHENING
service, the streets are clean and the
atmosphere is cooled by the sprays and
streams of the playing fountains, which
are as common as our amp-pUsts. Every
tenant is made responsible for the tidi
ness Of the street in front of his door
by surreptitious methods rivalry is en-.
couraged between neighhors, streets and
localities, and the result is clean streets
the length and breadth of the empire
In Paris the street cleaners never rest
One staff of men relieves the other, the
brushes and scrapers are going all the
time, and the sprinkling pipes flood the
cutters and dampen the walks and
drives. Dirt never gets chance to pile
up. There are men on duty the whole
blessed time whose office it is to see thai
nuisances are checked before they assert
themselves. In Paris, as in Germany
there is tendency to buy foods only as
they are required. The people have nc
ice to speak of, and so they go to market
or get their supplies several times a day
A thrifty Partisan housewife said to me
"The things buy are not put into the
refuse can; they are eaten" This econ.
omy is universal, Instead of carpet!
the average house has polished floors
not parquetry, but common hardwood
floors, rubbed with loveand kept waxed
and polished. So sweepings are no
only less frequent, but less productive
of dust and dirt.
TIE REFUSE BURNED
This, and the habit of burning all thu