The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-01-31
NEW YORK TOPICS
GOSSIP AND CURRENT COMMENT
FROM THE METROPOLIS.

Intense colo nave brought ABOUT
Dirtier streets Than Have Been
seen Since the Days of Colonel
EyarinE, the Inventor of "White
VNinGs"-Tammany's New Health
CommissiOner-Sur History
Of a Hundred Dollar Bill.
New York, Jan. O.-Special.-So far
this has been the Oldest fashioned win
fer New York has seen for many a
long year..
translated, this means that it has
been colder. that there has been more
snow. and that discomfort from the
weather has been greater than many
of the younger native born New York
ers have ever before experienced.
Some of the results have been de-
plorable. The appalling loss of life
from pneumonia, greater, it is said,
than would follow from any ordinary
epidemic of the plague, is something
that has set the doctors and the health
officials to scratching their heads pref
ty hard in order to discover and devise
preventive and remedial measures.
There is a probability that some adj
vance will come of all this; that even
tually because of it the worst scourge
to which this latitude is subject. bar
ring tuberculosis, will be handled more
successfully in the future.
Dirtier streets than the metropolis
has known since the days of Waring,
the apostle of clean thoroughfares,
have been another result. So far no
one has been unfair enough to charge
the increased street untidinesS to the
new municipal administration, and, in
fact, it should not be so charged.
1t would have required an eXpendi-
ture of more than three millions in cold
dollars to remove the snow from all
the streets and the employment of
thousands more men than could have
been found in any possibility. More
over, even had the men and the money
been available, it would have been out
of the question to do the work prompt
ly and we'll in the intense cold. Below
zero temperatures may be borne and
worked i'll in localities where the cold
is expected so that men dress for it,
but here, where the working men rarely
see zero, and so do not have the thick
clothing required to withstand vigor-
Gus cold. things are different.
Some one the other day, discussing
the situation thought it very easy
matter for the men to readjust them
selves to the unwonted conditions on
short notice, but a little consideration
along lines of practical horse sense
was enough to dispel this notion.
When the cold weather was at it
bitterest, some one in authority found
that few of the men among the seven
hundred under him owned gloves or
mittens thick enough to protect their
hands from freezing. Thereupon he
bought good, thick gloves for all con-
cerned, at an expense of 5000 or $780,
To have QUILTED properly the 1000
or 5000 men employed at clearing
away the snow with warm clothing all
around would have meant the expen-
dtture of several thousands, with the
certainty that there would be no use
for the extra thick clothing after a
very little time 1t would have been a
losing game for either the city, the
men or the contractors to lay out that
much money, and consequently the
men suffered intensely at their work
and besides were unable to do any,
thing like as much as usual, within
the hours they could stand up under
the exposure.
Many persons who come here from
regions where the winters are normal
1y very cold speak at first with con
Tempt OF what they consider the New
forkerS' tenderness" After thew
nave had taste of what cold weather
really means here they change their
tune. One man who arrived here the
oeher day from up Montreal way de-
cIared that ten above-very low tenn
perature for New York-was much
colder in its effect upon him here than
was ten or twenty below in Montreal
rev days later the mercury got
peloW zero in Metropolitan thermome-
1ers, and then the Montreal man and
every other Northerner in the town at
me tme grumbled worse at the cold
man he had ever grumbled at home
worse, too, than New Workers. have
grumbled.
al. On the whole, the transportation
Ihes In Manhattan have got along
very Well with the snow, delays having
zen surprisingly few. The elevated
4Eaus nave done amazingly we'll, when
ne ne trouble over sleet on the third rail
IdsI winter is kept in mind. 1t is quite
Within bounds to say that there were
~ az dPpreciable delays at all during
nc sect storms of last week; last
S Stti under much less difficult con-
11n lt,olS third rail transmission of
PT@er collapsed almost completely.
CO., ~oulu be pleasant to be able to
e,,ue SNille InlIlg OF the elevated ana
cor rlace roads in Brooklyn, but truth
ttLLIpels the registering of quite an
beiIer state of affairs. 1t has, in fact,
UJen impossible for persons living any
,,ons on Long Island and doing bust
Us Us IN Manhattan to depend on get
81 ing pack and forth with regularity
a. al and nearly all the commuters
~, tne steam lines have also been
P"' 10 great inconvenience.
scarcely less demoralzed than the
~ suburban service has been the
vice of the Public Service Corpora
mon OF New Jersey, which brings
.rany thousands to New York daily
o.iu carries them home again. besides
oiiInolllng nearly all the interminal
iu hterurban passenger traffic in the
Jersey suburbs.
III us difficulties too. you may have
iou something in the dispatches. De-
- nave been so bad that in Hobo
a the municipal authorities have
5Hoie through the motions of declaring
corporations charter void. One
enllg, when there was not power
t"W2ush 10 move the cars, the crowd
th,.Ned seriously of burning two or
o-.ee OF them where they stood The
al aSed people actually did smash out
me windows in them, quite a justi
I,~oIe proceeding it would seem, for
'ng 10 the jam in the cars there was
ar enough for the closely packed
,u waiting passengers to breathe, and
eral women had tainted away.
IN the nature of things Wages can't