The Savannah morning news., 1903-03-23
STREET ADVERTISING.

Every person who takes pride in the
city in which he or she lives, sincerely
desires that the streets be kept clean
and attractive. No street can possibly
be considered attractive IL it is liktered
with hand-bi1ls or disfgured by glar-
ing advertisements on deadwalls, bill
boards, trees, telegraph poles and
everything else that will hold an ad-
vertisement. In New York city dead
wall advertising has been carried to the
extreme of righteousness. Whole sides
of tall houses are taken up with the
suggestion that the reader "eat some
body's oats" or wear Madame So
and-So's corsets." A certain breakfast
food manufacturer recently decorated
the side Of a building with the picture
of a man seventy feet high and fat
tered himself that he had made a mas
ter stroke in advertising. The architec-
tura1 beauty of the nearby buildings
was detraeted from by the monstrosity;
but the advertiser cared nothing for
that.
n In various cities, where civic pride in
the beauty of the streets has been
aroused, ordinances have been passed
putting limit to the size of billboards
that may be erected and restricting the
advertising that may be done on the
streets. Among such cities are Chica-
go, Minneapolis Washington, Buffalo
Syracuse and Albany. Movements to
check the nuisance of disfiguring ad-
vertisements on the streets have also
been started in Philadelphia, Cleveland
and other cities. In two or three states
there have been introduced in the Leg
islature bills applicable to the state at
large covering this matter, the idea be-
ing to keep advertisements of pills and
| powders off of the rocks and preci-
pices and other natural formations
which the fellows with the paint pots
so love to besmear and ruin.
In Savannah, happily, the street ad-
| vertising is fairly well regulated. Tin
tags tackled on poles, walls and trees
are comparatively unknown here, and
the birlboards are less obtrusive than
in some other cities. But there is one
4
that is very annoying, and costly at the
same time. and which should be abat-
| ed. We refer. to the scattering of
dodgers and hand-bills about the
streets, on piazzas, on front stoops, etc.
| Possibly seven in ten of the bills SO dis
tributed become purely waste matter
Householders pay little if any atten-
tion to that kind of advertising. They
regard 1t as an unmitigated nuisance.
the chief end of which is to make lit
ter to be cleaned by the housekeepers
or the city force, or both; and a large
part of the cleaning falls to the city
force.
The taxpayers pay thousands of dol
lars a year to maintain street clean
ing department, and still, on account of
the litter of dodgers scattered all
around the town. they are unable to
have clean streets and squares.
The bits of paper are car
ried by the wind into the parks
and squares, as well as along the
streets, creating the appearance of
slovenly housekeeping on the part OF
the city. AS a matter of fact it would
require a street cleaning force much
larger than that now employed. TO fol-
low the bill distributors and clean ur
their litter. 1t is an injustice to the
people who pay for clean streets and
squares to permit this nuisance to con-
tinue.