The herald., 1893-07-17
NOISE IN A BIG CITY.
PROGRESS FROM BARBARisM MAY De
MEASURED BY NOISE.

mGASOhED DIT NOtoEs
The Higher the Civilization the Greater
City Anthorities of Today Arc Directed
Toward Reducing It.
There always comes a period in the
history Of progressive community when
desire to keep down noise begins to
show itself. In the primitive stages of
culture---the savage, the barbarian and
the semibarbarian-the passion for noise
Is always strong. All savages and bar
barians love to make all the row they
can. Their joy and sorrow both express
themselves In yells, walls and shouts
and the beating and blowing Of loud re-
sounding instruments, more especially
the drum and the horn. The noise of
primitive savage warfare almost equals
that of the gunpowder engagements Of
modern arms, although it was, as we
might say, almost wholly manual or
vocal. asiH
The din of barbarian funeral, too,
was and is something appalling. The
practice of hiring mourners to make q
loud lament on such occasions has come
down almost to our own time among
the Celtic Irish. All African travellers
describe the noise of little merrymaking
in an African village as something which
no civilized man easily forgets. Those
who have passed an evening at a Chinese
theater have probably never in their
widest dreams thought it possible to
produce plays with musical accompani-
ments of such awful shrillness and in
tensity.
In fact, it is hardly an exaggeration to
say that the progress Of race in civ
ilization may be marked by a steady re-
duction in the volume of sound which it
produces in connection with its deaths,
births, marriages, feasts, merrymak-
ings, its wars and peaces, trade, COM
merce and manufactures. The more cul-
ture of all kinds it acquires the less noise
it produces. There is no surer sign, in
fact, Of an upward movement Of the
tribal soul than the appearance Of de-
sire to get along with less uproar. When
its leading men begin to ask themselves
whether this or that could not safely be
done with fewer yells or smaller drums,
it shows that it is becoming self conscious
and is feeling the throbs of q new life.
After this comes change in the charac-
ter of the musical instruments, general
lowering of the tones Of the voice, the
substitution at funerals of the silent tear
for the half maniacal "keen," and the
exaction of silence in military drill.
In cities this mental and moral growth
is of course displayed in the repression
of street cries, Of street music, of all
noises made for mere amusement, such
as beating of drums, and blowing Of
horns, and purposeless and persistent
shouting and yelling. These are but
rudimentary steps. and we have already
taken them in New York. The next and
most important one, the reduction Of the
noise made by the ordinary and legiti-
mate street traffic, we are only begin
ming. It's importance has been recog-
nized in the modern world pari passu
with the increasing interest in and care
Cor public hygiene.
There is no modern city health board,
and indeed no modern city doctor, who
is not well aware of the evil effects Of
incessant noise in the vast and increas-
ing multitudes who in all the great cities
now live, one might say, by their wits
but, more accurately, by their nerves
The amount Of mental operations which
require silence, or at all events an ap-
proach to silence, for their healthfulness
in cities like New York, London or
Paris, carried on by merchants, brokers,
bankers, bookkeepers, preachers, profess
ors, architects, designers, engravers,
painters, students, judges, lawyers, ed
itors, ministers, is something enormous
and grows with all our material growth.
The performance of this work in the
midst of tremendous uproar of any kind
of course greatly increases the expendi-
ture of vital force which accompanies
all mental exertion. Consequently the
reduction Of city noise is now one of the
most important elements in all city re-
forms.
In New York we have as yet only
made beginning on 1t by the introduce
tion of the asphalt pavement, but this is
being rapidly extended and must pro-
duce a marked effect in sound reduction
before long. What this pavement does
to lessen noise in the streets in which it
exists everybody who has passed along
them or lived on them knows. It makes
conversation in cabs or carriages and in
rooms facing on the street comfortable
and makes sleep in summer nights with
open windows an easy possibility
which are really a, complete answer to
all the complaints of slipperiness.
Better far that an occasional horse
should come down than that the nerves
Of thousands Of hardworking men and
women should be continuously set on
edge by clatter which is all the more
wearing for being intermittent. In Lon
don the hard grinding, soul penetrating
noise of the New York stone pavement
has been suppressed, Or rather has been
largely converted into a subdued, con-
tinuous roar or boom by means Of wood,
asphalt and macadam, and though
horses fall much on them all humanity
gains.-New York Post.
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