The Lafayette gazette. [volume] (Lafayette, La.) 1893-1921, 1903-03-28
Clean the Streets.
The Gazette:

To the Editor OF The Gazette:
Will you kindly allow me space in your
valuable paper to make a few remarks On
the above question.
see by the New Orleans press that
among the overwhelming crowds of visitors
from the north there are a great many CAPT
talsts and tourists looking for South rn
homes. Some want farming lands and
others want to settle with their families in
some of our cities towns. One small
group in company of Col. Willis Wood, J.
X. Grow, w. S. Bloomfield and ID. J. Dean,
of Kansas City, recently visited the Crescent
City, and Mr.. Dean says in an interview:
New Orleans is a wonderfully interest
ing city, but the streets should b. improved
alt is ray first visit to the city, and the
first thing that attracted my attention upon
leaving the station was the condition OF the
streets. New Orleans is destined to he one
of the greatest cities i'm the United States in
few years, but one of tine first requisites
for great and prosperous city is clean
streets, and the sooner they get to work on
them the better. They actually repul-
sve to stranger who has been accustomed
to good PavemeniS and clean streets. and L
hope they will be inproved l have just
come from the City of Mexico, which is
one of the clearcst and pref lest cities in tie
world, and there is striking 81 rn'larity
between the capital and New Orleans in
many respects but the streets is not one of
them
Another distinguished traveller and home
seeker, when writing home to his friends,
says: 81 left New Orleans for Texas on
the S. +. X. X. can't say that was very
favorably impressed with the country until
! got near New Iberia, where the Train
stops only a few moments, and the town
being some distance from the station 1 can't
say much about it. The next stoppi ng place
was Lafayette where stopped twenty
minutes for luncheon. The country be-
tween New Iberia and Lafayette is perfectly
q e!gh l think it is one of the finest
farming countries l saw. Lafayette
has the incest station grounds on the road
between New Orleans and Texas. AT the
left yon go in, there is lovely garden
of three or four acres, where you can see
growing (nsw in February ali kinds of
beautiful shubbery, flowers, and vegetables
While waiting for the train l walked a
rod or two up the street crossing I looked
up and down the street and the railroad
track. l must say tina, very much
surprised and disappointed to see such dirty,
filthy streets. The bitches on each side of
the street were filed with stagnant water
from six to eight inches deep, oil empty
cans, waste paper and the sweeping from
the stores and shops. 1 looked up the rail-
road track short distance. and saw what
l supposed to be their regular dumping
ground for the garbage GU, of their back
yards. If what l saw fair sinil: of
the rest of the town, 1 could not be hired
TO settle there with my family
The streets are an index tn progress
49, -,
stranger looks a.. l cannot understand
why our Council she ulI allow streets to
get in such a horriI and filthy state, eSpcci-
ally around the station when many
strangers travelling through i'll search
of Southern homes.
We have laws to prohibit the pc OPP from
throwing any kind of rubbish in the sire It.
If we have not, ought t. hav:. Why
dom, the Council see that the Law, en-
forced. There are fCu: of them living
within stones lhlow Of the fi.,hcs: Streets
in town. There is no excuse for any town
that has as good drainage as this has for
having stagnant water standing in the
bitches breeding contagion for two three
months until the sun drys it up. There
is a good drainage from the railroad down
to the. Parkerson ditch and if the bitches
cleaned out and kept clean the
water would never stand in tn I'm.
CLERICUS.