The herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1893-1900, 1898-07-24
UNNECESSARY NOISES

UNNECESSARY NOISES
The average citizen of the United
States has got so accustomed to unneces-
sary noises that he really imagines them
a necessary part of business. He little
dreams of the wear and tear these bar
barous and brutal sounds at all hours Of
physicists tell us that our system will,
if forced to it, adapt itself to most
any old abuse. However, 1t is
only the fit that will survive.
And as the fit is not a moral guam
ity, and not, in every instance. the best,
it behooves sensible people to do what
little is in their power to remove imper-
feet environments, so that the best will
survive Mr.. David Christie Murray.
in his THE Cockney Columbus" tells us
that he was appalled, by the noises In
New York. Listen to him:
The city fairly terrified me. Com
pared with Twenty-third street. our
London Strand is a garden of sleep.
Such a wonderful sway OF life, and
hurry of coming and going such a roar
of traffic and Changing of bells.
For the sake of our cockney Columbus
nerves it is well his fate kept him out of
Los Angeles. If Twenty-third street
makes the Strand seem like paradise
of sleep in comparison, then the Strand
is Nirvana compared to Los Angeles.
New York is busting, busy city, and
consequently noisy during business
hours; but after commercial hours the
business streets are as quiet as the
tombs. And New York clubs, hotels and
places of public entertainment are dec
orous and far less noisy and boisterous
than are similar places in Paris or Lon
don. The New Yorker, too, has evolved
high enough to know that door is
meant to be shut, not slammed, and that
hotel and other public places, and corri-
doris are aisles to be quietly walked
through and not avenues for sprinting
in, or other athletic amusements. The
guests of private hotels hold their con-
versations in reasonably low tones of
voice, meant for the occupants of the
bors in the next block. Sleighbells are
permissible in winter about two days in
year. when "the beautiful" covers the
ground, but never for milk wagons,
ing horns through the streets, advertis-
ing Solomon Levies Great Fire Sale"
would drive big Sachem Croker to plug
ging his ears with cotton-or to drink.
Now, Los Angeles is a big, hustling
youngster-one we are all proud of-but
it is altogether too COMPOUNDED, unneces-
sarily noisy. We are too proud of our
kid to let it grow to manhood contract
| ing this bad habit. 1t can and ought to
be squelched. How? OF course the best
way is by individuals teaching them
selves that there are others, and that all
unnecessary noise is nuisance to one S
| neighbor, and to bear in mind that it is
a good enough rule to do whatever one
pleases so that he does nothing to i'm
jure (disturb) his neighbor. The other
method Is quicker, but rarely satisfac-
tory, namely, for our city parents te
! thrash our noisy hawkers and hucksters
into good manners. For the corridor
night rioters there is no remedy too he
roic. Probab bly, the punishment a West
erner suggested to his neighbor, while
witnessing the lynching Of a horse thief,
that it is not half bad enough for him,
sir-he ought to be kicked"
When Schopenhauer dipped his pen
in gal and wrote of women, he was off
his eggs and trying to hatch on nothing;
but the old gentleman, when he pierced
the fifth ribs of his obtuse Teutonic
neighbors for their outrageous noisiness.
| was covering a full setting In splendid
style. Schopenhauer says there are a
great many people not sensitive to noiser
who smile at such things-but he be-
| lieves, too, that they are not sensitive
ito argument, or thought, or poetry, or
art-in word to any kind of intellectual
| influence" Is that true?
| Any way, let us have peace.