The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1905-06-02
CITY WASTES; A PAPER.
Su0sestions Offered by the Health
Committee, C. !. L.

pers prepared by the chairman of the
committee on health and cleanliness
working under the direction of the Civ
ic league They will take up in order:
One-City wastes.
Two-The disposal of city wastes.
Three-The law regulating the dis
posal of city wastes.
City Wastes.
Man is perhaps the only animal dis
posed to community life, in whom clean
illness is not an instinct but a virtue
that must be cultivated. Ants and bees
live under conditions similar to our city
life, but with them cleanliness is an in
stinct born of the law of selfpreserva
ton, while with the reasoning creature
man there is a constant uphill struggle
to prevent his being submerged in his
own filth. This may sound like an ex-
travagant assertion but it has been
demonstrated not on this side of the
Atlantic but in Europe where civili-
zation which only means the congre-
eating of people in cities-"Civitias" is
older, the people are actually living
on the third layer of dirt that has ac-
cumulated round them through the ages.
The human race which at first was row.
ing and pastoral and as far as would
seem from their nature not intended
for community life was eventually
driven to it for the sake of mutual as
sistance against their own kind and
wild beasts. But the laws of santa
ton We're not imprinted on their hearts
and it was not until disease had again
and again swept their cities and decim-
ated the population that any effort was
made to check the deposit of filth in
and around the dwellings of man.
The cities of the old world at the
present with their paved streets swept
daily are comparatively clean, also those
of our own country especially along the
coasts; there is no reason why the
smaller towns of the Middle West"
should wait for another day and gener-
alton to improve its municipal house
keeping.
If we take this city for example COW
ering as it does about 3,S40 acres and
containing besides its 10000 inhabit-
ants perhaps 5000 more living creatures
as horses, cows, cats, dogs, ETC., also the
thousands of teams that enter our town
yearly and the thousands of people COM
ing and going there must be consider
able pile of waste thrown into the town
daily.
As life consists of a continual pro-
cess of building up and tearing there
must necessarily be an accumulation of
waste wherever any creature exists,
and if we compute the average daily
waste of the $4,000 living creatures who
remain permanently in the town at
the small rate of one pound eaen it
would amount to nine tons, or in the
course of a year to 1926 tons. Now
if the waste product of the prepare
tion of food for man and beast to-
gether with the ashes from the fires
used in cooking food and heating our
homes were computed at another pound
to the individual daily it would make
an aggregation of 657O tons or 1917
million pounds.
Now there is at least 1917 million
pounds of filth to be disposed of year
ly in Mankato. Nature takes care of
large part of it by resolving all ami
NAL and vegetable matter into their
simple elemental gases through the pro-
cess of fermentation and qualification.
the agent employed is bacteria. AS a
rule these bacteria are harmless but it
is a question if they do not become
highly hurtful and poisonous under cer-
tain conditions and as good an author
ity as Victor c. Vaughn of Ann Arbor
supports the theory that the germ which
causes typhoid fever may be non pois
onous until after successive regenera
tions in certain filthy media.
During the process of decomposition
gases are liberated from these tons of
filth so that the air OF our city is no.
ticeably contaminated. This is easily
observed on driving into the town from
the hills or country around. This filth
laden atmosphere invades our parlors,
our sleeping rooms and our kitchens so
that no part of our dwelling is free
from it.
That family keep their house and
grounds free from decaying matter is
not any guarantee that they are not
forced to inhale the polluted air watt
ed over their neighbors rubbish heap.
While We live in city we must to
some extent be our brothers keeper. The
health of the city depends on it's clean
Illness, not the sporadic cleanliness of a
few individuals but on the cleanliness