The age-herald., 1898-02-02
Society for Municipal
 Improvement in Southern Towns


 Yesterday afternoon, at the meeting of the local federation, the following adnira- ble and timely paper was read by Miss Annie K. Walker, who represented. the Nineteenth Century club in the discus sion of this important subject:
 Women have perhaps learned that the most imperative requirements of house. keeping are those of renervating, renew ing, making fresh. Cleanliness, orderli- ness, harmony and ideallty being quail ties involved in good housekeeping, 1t fol- lows that these qualities are essential to good housekeeping In the municipality and the state All that serves the municipali- ty to secure cleanliness, sanitation and beauty, belongs to the esthetics of house. keeping, so that it Is very natural re- suit that the responsibility of the beauty and cleanliness of the municipal home should be gradually resting on women
 Tn many of the cities in the north and west, the women claim that out of the civic section of their clubs have grown large civic clubs, which are in the nature of improvement societies. The channels followed by civc sections lie open to our own progressive women, and in a city like Birmingham, that Is as conspicuous for its club movement, the day has come when the feminine quality of love of beauty and cleanliness must become a potentiaty in municipal economies and administration.
 "Take first the cleanliness of our streets. the cleanliness that is the outcome of perfect sanitation. Debris should be carted away daily, and the grass and weeds be cut and raked. The unwholesomeness of our sidewalks in the heart of the city Is accepted as the inevitable, the municipal authorities far having been powerless to prevent the great American habit of expectorating promiseuously. In an east ern city the city council committee on health, proposed that a fine of $l with jail term of one day be imposed on any person who expectorates in street ear or on the floor of public building. IT the men resort to such vigorous means to at tain this desired cleanliness, then the women with their slll-lined skirts ought to consider the question of protecting the public against violators of the laws of decency and health. There ought to be stringent laws in regard to sweeping the streets. We need more street cleaners and more frequent sweeping.
 we must work the councilmen up to our ideas of cleanliness and health In a western town, where the Improvement so- ciety has proven it's efficiency, the council has supplemented the money raised by membership fees which is set apart for this work by furnishing men on the streets for certain months and giving the women supervision of the work. The improve ment associations are also giving atten- tien to the condition of school houses public halls, jails, in enforcing the truant children clothed and put in school. They are working un- der the departments not only of street and public improvement, but also of edu- cation, including university extension the maintaining of public libraries, phian- thropy. including mothers meetings and sewing classes for the children of women who must keep the wolf from the door. hospitals, reformatores, the house, its architecture and sanitation, the establish ing of free kindergartens in the poorer dictricts, advocating scientific temperance instruction and free lectures house. hold economics. They are leaving no stone unturned to promote sentiment in favor of improvement along all practical lines.
 .'In Alabama improvement societies have been organized in Huntsville, Florence and Guntersville. The most encouraging re- ports nave come ITOIH these eHteIpfiSlnS towns. Whether we need in this great and growing city a society that shall be technically known as village improve ment society is a question that our fed eration must decide It no doubt recog nizes the practical needs of Birmingham. We are more favored than any other Ala bama city in population and public spirit, yet the failure to provide facilities for a wholesome condition of the city has been so conspicuous that it has induced the women of our city into discussion of the necessities which must find a permanent presence in every community. Bacon com- mences his essay on invention by saying: Before thing is done, man wonders how it can be done; after it Is done he wonders why it was not done before'''