The record-union., 1894-12-01
CARE OF LOCAL STREETS.

In another column q correspondent
draws attention to the uneconomic char
ncter of most of our graveled streets, to
the need for reformation of methods in
their care, and to the necessity for the
streets in the residence as well as the
business sections being cleaned. The
point that most impresses US is that made
regarding the necessity for digesting
plans now, rather than waiting until
another dry season is upon US. There
IS also valuable suggestion made in
the statement that the carriage of gritty
mud by wheels and hoofs from the poorly
graveled streets upon the bitumenized
rock streets must seriously injure the
latter.
The most of the mileage of our So
called graveled streets, perhaps twenty
miles, represents material that is not
gravel. 1t is clayey stuff that permits
the descent of water, makes a road a
seive instead of roof, and as result
The earthly material is softened and works
20 the surface, giving us in winter mud
the crossings and renders some highways
worse than earth roads,
In the winter now upon us we will
have a repetition of our old experiences;
most of the graveled streets will be deep
with the worst kind of red mud, which
will follow wheels and hoofs up onto the
expense to keep the latter clean. With
the return of spring the old cost will be
renewed of scraping up the mud and
carting off that which the people paid
heavily for under the belief that it was
Gravel. During the winter this material
works down into the cutters and clog
pense of labor to clean them out to pre-
vent the streets, lots and cellars being
Hooded.
We may not hope for the speedy aban-
donment of all graveled streets and the
substitution of macadam; it will come in
time, but for number of years we must
put up with the so-called gravel. But we
can, in devising a new system, insist
upon repairs-which the poor equality
of the material now on the streets renders
necessary each spring-being made with
clean gravel, or with finely broken trap
rock, though we confess that to put
broken rock upon a substructure of red
clay and round stone violates all the
economies of good road building. But if
clear, fine gravel costs thrice what the
material we now have involved, it will
still be the cheaper.
Regarding the cleaning OF the streets in
the residence sections, it will be news to
no one to state that it is never done, ex-
of of mud is ordered and to some extent
when the cutters are cleared after the
winter rains cease. AS matters now are,
it is common for lawn rubbish, grass
cuttings, shrub and tree trimmings, and
walk sweepings to be thrown into
the streets, where, along with manure
droppings. they are ground up and
crushed into the street dressing
making mixture abominable in winter,
and which in the dry season pulverizes
and rises into the atmosphere to be
breathed-in short, it is slovenly, filthy
and deleterious to health. But we can
not clean the streets now, because no pro-
vision has been made for it, and we must
endure another winter of mud and filth.
mixed, the waste of yards, the ashes oi
nurnings of rubbish, manure droppings
and the like.
Now is the time, while we have leisure,
TO calmly look over the whole field and
devise system for the correction of ali
these evils. 1t can be done, and we be-
lieve at no greater cost than is now visited
upon the people for mud scraping, hole
filing. gutter cleaning and rubbish
dumping. If the matter is put over until
next spring we will simply postpone il
for whole year. The thing to do is to
take counsel of our experience now, and
take time to devise system to meet the
need. The Mayor and City Trustees car
set the necessary inquiry on foot at once
and to that end they might well enlist