The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1897-01-29
STREET CLEANING IN EUROPE.
A Hungarian City Whose System is
Practical Success.

Hungarian City Whose System is a
Practical Success.
In the matter of the sweeping of
streets aud sidewalks and of tho collec.
ton Of household wastes, the methods in.
Budapest are Substantially the same as
m% Nienna,S save that tho ssweeperss are
active young men anu are much more
industrious. Other differences arc only
in details Of little Importance, except
with regard to the cab stands, which are
many and are actively used. These are
generally asSlittle lower than the street
are graded to sewer inlet. ana are
asphaited: They are swept and thor
times Il day. so that the usual odor and
untidincss of such places are entirely OBJ
Waited ! y -. - :. %
The area of paved streets isgeuual to
about 100 miles of New York streets.
The cost of snow removal in the winter
of 1SsG-9G was 10000 gulden. Wages
are sulden per day. The entire cost
for all cleaning. snow removal, trans
rortation of wastes and street spriukliny
In the matter of final disposition,
budapest is very Instructive and i:lter-
esting. Everything. is hauled to a sta
ton some three miles away. Here the
wagons, night soil vans, etc, are dumped
into ears standing in a tunnel under the
dumping Platforms" The loaded train
runs out about three mites farther. to
kleinpesth, point remote from Ill popu-
'lation, save-for the 20ts-Meh, women .tna
children working about the disposal
plant. They are Il curious community.
The works :h,ye been in operation for
some thirty years Nearly I'LL Of the
handling and separations of the material
is done by machinery, only the culling
out of the salahle wastes requiring: man
ual labor.
The apparatus is contained in 4. large
four-story brick building, with ample
steam powcr-unsalablc rubbish being the
fuel used. The railroad cars arc unload
cd into small tram wagons. which are
hauled by an endless chain from a tun-
mel under the track up steep slope to
the top of the building. where they are
dumped into the mouth of a coarse re-
volving. screen. which holds back large
melons this is the land of the best and
cheapest watermelons in the worldD and
other large objects. What passes through
the wide meshes of this screen runs into
another with Il very close mesh. This
takes out the dust and the fine horse ma
nure as ground up by the wheels and the
sweepers in the streets, and sends it. to
dumps The next screen divides the re-
manning material, roughly, into two
grades. for easier handpicking; ?.
The picking tables, which are very long.
are furnished with endless aprons of
heavy hemp cloth about two feet wide.
These move slowly between two rows of
| women and children. who select the va
rjous treasures to which they arc as
signed, each after it's kind. The white
bottle boy let's the green bottles pass. and
the big bone woman pays no attention to
the small bones: these meet their fate
further on. One group Of children de-.
votes itself entirely to corks, another to
nails. another to strings. and SO on. As
the cloth finally turns over the end of
the table it drops all of it's rejected mate
rial into Il conveyor. which carries it to
the manure wagon. In the heap to which
| it is added there goes Oh Il process of
''bacteriolysis" that reduces it all to the
condition of 4 fine compost, fit for the
fields. Curiously. to us, no use is made
of paper or rags. save as they are re-
uuired for fuel. The wood pulp industry
and ti{1r:'Cfcrnlan tariff on paper stock
have robbed them of all commercial val,
ue. This. too, in the face of a minute>
ness Of economy that is careful not to let
= single old cork escape, although the on
| IL sale for the corks is to make Tenders
| for the use Of the boats on the Danube.
| Nothing that has the slightest selling
| value is allowed to escape, and what can
not be sold in its present form is turned
over to the microbes of the compost
heaps.-Harper Weekly.