New-York tribune., 1908-09-27
MUNICIPAL NOVELTIES.
Continued from second page.

| tillery to join the water police. There are now
sixty-five men the force, many of them ex-
soldiers but the number will soon be increased
| to one hundred, and perhaps it will amount to a
regiment or more within the two decades of the
Ashokan construction. military organization
is being developed. There small squads OF
twelve men, commanded by sergeants, which
are stationed at different points.
paternalstic novelty is the Deaf and Dumb
School lately opened by the Board of Educa-
| ton at No. 225 East 23d street Miss Regan.
principal of the newly opened institution, told a
| Tribune reporter that eighty pupils had already
registered and more Fastening to take ad-
| vantage of instruction that would cost Sl.0OO
| year in a private school. There are said to Dc
| fifteen hundred deaf and dumb children In New
York who receive instruction. and about as
many who taught. 1t is expensive to main
tain deaf and dumb school There is one
teacher to ten pupils. whereas in an ordinary
| school one teacher may have class OF hfty
| pupils Miss Regan and her subordinates forbid
the use of the sign language and teach the
| children to speak and read speech by watching
| the motions of the lips. Parents are asked to
| cooperate by not using the sign language at
home Some children being brought from
Brooklyn and other boroughs. and in these cases
| the Board of Education pays the daily carfare.
| ear trumpets and tongue manipulators to teach
| the children how to make certain sounds. Pu-
| pills of all ages from five years up are admitted.
and the full course Of instruction Is planned to
cover thirteen years. The hours from y until
2 O'Clock are devoted to studies while from
| until o'clock the boys work at such trades as
printing sign painting and carpentry. and the
| girls learn sewing and cooking. Trade instruc-
| ton is considered necessary for those handi-
| o-,1 6rIyS1 in
means of livelihood Each child wears an oval
metal badge issued by the Board of Education
| SO that he or she won't get lost on the way to
school 1t is expected that the school will soon
be filled to its capacity of 24O pupils and that
there will be need for other institutions of the
same kind
Superintendent Maxwell has initiated another
remarkable school enterprise in a course OF
study designed to teach young women to become
expert clerks in retail and department stores
The course will be embodied in the curriculum
of the evening high schools for women, and will
cover two years of lectures and scientific in
struction in the art Of selling. store oTganiza-
tion commercial arithmetic. elementary law ana
the manufacture of commercial products. MISS
Diana Hirscher formerly welfare manager or
| q Boston department store, is In charge OF the
new departure. The first class has been started
in School 27 4od street. Third avenue. II
Is said there are thirty thousand salesWomen in
New York who would have escaped tedious
and Improbable apprenticeship as cash or wrap
per girls if they had had such training as the
| public school course is meant to supply.
| A novelty for the people of the East Side and
| of the Eastern District of Brooklyn befell on
September 1G, when tho Williamsburg BridGa
was declared finally completed, and through ele-
waited trains began to run from Delaney street
to Brownsville and Canarsie. Mayor Mcclellan
operated the first train across the bridge Ii
has taken a long time to complete this bridge,
which was begun in 1896. formally opened IN
1903 and opened again in 1905 when the first
trolleys went The trolley and elevated
trains using six tracks, have capacity OF
hundred thousand passengers an hour The
Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company pays the city
10 cents car for each round trip and SlO'oVo
year rental for the bridge station