The record-union., 1895-06-03
IT CAN AND IT SHOULD Be Done.
A Plan for Local Improvement, Cost
less and Feasible.
How Little Pleasant Effort Can Be
Made to Rebound to the City's Credit
and Its Comfort and Pride.

for it. 1t is so good that some citizens
have seized upon it. and it may be car
ried out. And this is the idea.
The young lady who preached the
thing has been reading much, and she
has discovered that in New England first
and now in the Central States and largely
in the West they have village. town or
city improvement clubs, the sole pur-
pose of which is to promote the cleanli-
ness and neat appearance of the towns.
Even 80 large city as Philadelphia has
fallen upon the plan and is working it
out successfully.
These clubs are small. They seldom
embrace more than the residents of four
contiguous blocks. The way they oper-
ate ia this. On some pleasant evening the
neighbors in block get together at the
residence of one of them. They there
and then form local improvement club.
the sole purpose of which Is to keep the
streets and alleys in that neighborhood
perfectly clean. This is done by an
agreement by each resident that once
time TO cleaning the alley and street In
front of MS or her forty feet OF
property, by seeing that the children OF
the family, or the servants, or the house
holder, picks up all waste, all loose stones
and all rubbish, and removes the same to
a common pile, to be taken away by the
Ecavenger. They also agree that each
will clear out the weeds, overrunning
grass and the like on walk edges and in
cutters, and generally make alley and
street frontages neat. They agrea also to
warn all vegetable peddlers. under pen-
atty of prosecution, not to throw refuse
into the street, and not to litter the gut
ters.
The members of the club are very early
prompted by local pride to Guido one an
other in the matter of keeping the respec-
tive fronts in neat order, and in seeing
that the ordinances against littering the
streets are enforced. They all agree that
they will not throw garden trimmings
into the ALLEYS, or upon the highways, as
is here practieed, and that no rubbish is
piled up to be burned in the streets. The
result is, that as one block cleans up
and keeps neat and tidy, the people on
the next one are inspired by a like spirit.
and so the movement pushes all over the
the city and the result is speedy reforma
ton along all the residence streets, and at
SO little outlay of labor and at no cost, that
presently all the people express sur
prise that the thing was not earlier
thought Of.
over in Woodland the other day Just
before the arrival of the editorial guests
that the city had invited, the people
turned out on such a proposition. and in
q few hours made every street In the city
q model for cleanliness, and now the
Woodlandites are wondering why the
thing cannot be done right along-and it
can be.
Here in Sacramento we have no fund
for cleaning the streets OF the residence
sections. Once or twice year the Street
Superintendent sends out gangs of men
10 al ha md
lated matter, weeds and the like, but that
costs much money, and is all that can be
done in the present condition of the city
finances. We are presently to have a
large gathering here OF people from all
over the coast. They are coming to
the State Fair and 10 the Native Sons
celebration of Admission Day. They
will observe the condition of our streets
critically, and therefore lit behooves u.s.
says this bright and observant young
spirited woman, 'to put our streets into
q cleanly state, and we eau do it without
spending dollar.
My idea is to have residents in
groups of say, two facing blocks meet
and organize block improvement clu bs.
They should elect Captain, generally
some citizen of leisure who takes pride in
his neighborhood, and then go to work as
the situation will suggest to each. All
loose stones on the surface will be picked
or rak ed up and removed, scraps of paper,
vegetable rubbish, tamale Feelings, old
sticks, tree droppings and the like will
once q week be removed, and each resi-
dent, on his forty or eighty feet, see to it
that his or her frontage is kept as clean
as a whistle. Ten minutes work will do
for every forty feet, l have calculated
after the first trial. OF course the first
time il will take half an hour.
81 can tell you of one town where this
is done every day, and almost every leaf
that falls Ia picked up at once. Well, it
is delight to ride around in that beauti-
full town. Loose stones are kept out of
the street, no shrubbery cuttings or lawn
grass moving is deposited in the high
way or the alley. and l tell you the effect
is so fine. Why, sir, in Sacramento on
Friday, in walk along on one of
our best residence streets for a few
blocks, and where we all take strangers
/ found these accommodations. Here is
my list: Grass cuttings in the street, five
piles, to dry up and be scattered and
blown about; shrubbery trimmings, two
piles; tree trim mings, four piles, and
one evidently a month old, all tramped
down; loose stones, macadam and cobble
haulings dropped by teams all along four
blocks, some of the stones as big as my
head, sir; yes, sir, and enough to rack a
light buggy badly. at one corner /
found a great accumulation of banana
Fully fifty feet of thistle or burr weeds
/ found. and along in the cutters for over
six blocks vegetable strippings thrown
out by Chinese vegetable peddlers from
their carts. Old paper, rags, boots. shoes.
wire, crushed sticks, twigs and limbs of
trees. hoops. iron and wood. orange
peelings, bones, can tops, and in one
block three coal oil cans with strings at
tached that children had left there.
counted fourteen badly wrecked kites
hanging from telephone and telegraph
wires. two old bonnets, a half of a quilted
petticoat, broken down wheelbarrow,
three pieces of old rubber hose, and two
wagon spokes, with here and there scraps
of old leather, besides q lot of other rub
bish, all within a space Of tour blocks,
and nice, cleanly people living on each
side OF that street, too"
II have not mentioned grass growing
up between the curb and the walks. and
weeds between the paving of the walk
way, nor have kept any account of the
crooked hitching posts, and the smashed
wooden curbs. nor the poles marked up
and disiigured, nor in several places the
low limbs of trees striking one IN the
face. Then sir, have said nothing about
nndlng about every one hundred feet I'M
swept sidewalks with the aocumulations
OF weeks upon them. and in another
place In front or a house owned by a
woman with money in plenty, right
next to line cement walk and well kept
grounds, there is an old brick sidewalk
bumped up clear across for eight inches
in highth with the top tier of bricks
all broken of. and 1t has been so for
six months and is dangerous place at
night and horribly unsightly in the day
time.
Now, don't you see how easy it would
be for one to keep his forty or eighty feet
clean if it was done regularly? In
the town / refer to as so clean they take
such pride that there is the Iiveliesr COM