The morning journal-courier., 1908-08-07
THE HEALTH BOARD SPEAKS.

THE HEALTH BOARD SPEAKS.
 At last the health board has been heard from on the much discussed gar bage question. It's letter to the mayor makes very interesting reading Any information the board Is willing to di- vulge upon that subject at this time would. But if the board had only gone into the question of immediate re- lief In such detail as 1t has Into the question of future relief, there would be infinitely more interest in what 1t has to say, If 1t could show the pub lie such a painstakng study of the garbage removal problem in New Ha- ven during the summer of 1908, there would be some. at least, who would look upon the board as better fitted to plan satisfactorily for the years to come.
 The board speaks of the present sys- tenn as "slipshod, obsolete method" all of which Is only too apparent, and let's 1t go at that, The inference Is that those who have to close their windows because of the garbage smell In the Qulnnipiac avenue district, as told of in this paper, will have to continue to do so for some time yet and that those whose garbage has been collected but semi-occasionally will have to give thanks that the collec- tions. such as they are, are not as long cuee for the service, "slipshod' and Obsolete as 1t is, being worse this year than ever before The board &C., cepted the bids of new contractors with inferior equipment presumably because those bids were lower when time and time before 1t has easily ob. tained permission to award the con tract as 1t wished. regardless of the bids. It has not been true economy and there is not even evidence that the board has tried to get permission to return to the old order of things, which. though far from perfect, was In many ways far superior.
 
 In It's urging of a collection depart ment run by the city as coming pan acea, however, the board should have. and does have, the support of the city as whole. Only the man who places the importance of low tax-rate ahead of the importance of preserving the public health can oppose the proposi ton. But, after reading the boards very creditable treatment of this mat ter and that of a city plant for the disposal of the garbage, which goes somewhat into detail one cannot but become more than ever reconciled to the proposal that the whole matter be ultimately put in the hands of a pro fessonal in sanitation. There is a cer- tain humorous strain in the statement ! of the board of health that 1t favors certain kinds of plants, but that they would be prohibitive because of their vile odors, for the board of health would not tolerate them within the city limits. It is all very much like Pooh Bah in the Mikado, who, in one capacity, found himself unable to do what, in another capacity, he could not allow himself to do.
 The boards observation that a cer- tain sort of labor which costs at the rate of 215 cents in England would
 .ost all of 43 cents in America, casts some light upon the comparative labor conditions, Then, too, the proposed cost of plant for New Haven, sl5O,0OO, seems far more reasonable, when com pared with an economical but satisfac-
 tory plant fin England for town O
 only 33,000 population that cost fully
 s70,oO0. The board makes mention oi
 the proposal of the Bridgeport concern
 as way out of the difficulty That
 ought to be decided against at once
 for reasons 'too numerous to mention.
 Rather let 1t be one or two plants own
 ed by the city and, before decision it
 reached, let first class sanitary en. gineer decide what that plant or those
 plants shall be-