The morning journal-courier., 1908-01-18
THE SUPPRESSION OF NOISE.

We confess to the liveliest interest in the movement to be launched here to-day in behalf of society which is tavorably known elsewhere as The Society for the Suppression of Un- necessary Noise" The meeting is to be held in the chapel of the United church at three in the afternoon and ought to draw large number of peo- pie to whom must have been borne home the everlasting enervating pow CT of the rattle and bang of city life. Life is not a bed of roses and can never be made so, but it can be made softer couch than it now is and the women who are undertaking the task here deserve the support of the com munity.
 We are not as familiar as we ought to be with the origin of the society, but fortunately it possesses the power to carry conviction to the man who runs through its name. We may well believe that some keen-sighted and sensitive person who has formed the habit of thinking of other people and their condition in life as well as of himself CT herself, as the case may be, suddenly was brought to realization of the tremendous waste of nerve tis- sue simply as a consequence of the unnecessary bombardment to which the human race in congested centers submits We may also well believe that the statement of the obvious fact was all that was needed to attract tb~ at- tention cf scientific men and sound -sshiakers. On thes.~v+-cfry board will be found chu~Ghmen, college profess sors, members of congress, commis~ sioners ot health, doctors of medicine surgeons. eye and ear specialists. writ CTS, ynaster seamen and manufactur- eis. It may be questioned whether any other society in existence has ever succeeded in calling together a like variety of busy people and kept their interest sustained, which is only an- other way of asserting that the issue involved is of such human interest that it compels both admiration and support. The president is Mrs. Isaac l Rice. who is to be credited with all Of the virtues of the intelligent philan- thropist in constantly extending the limits of the organization and increas- ing the number of members. It is Mrs. Rice, too, who is this afternoon to give the women of New Haven their first baptism in the waters of common prudence.
 One of the striking victories which Mrs. Rice has won in her crusade for less noise consists in the elimination along the shore front of perfectly uso- less and maddening signalling by whis- tie and siren, indulged in, not because there was the slightest necessity for the noises but because masters and mates on moving crafts took that means of signalling wives and sweet heats. That kird Of noise is now prac- tically unknown Tn the waters about the city of New York. That victory can be quoted as a sample of what can be accomplished in an endless number of ways, waSs that need only to be pointed out as we are told Mrs. Rice points them out by means of a phonograph to be realized and stop ped. She has actually had the wit to can the noises of the street, and when they are reproduced through tho photograph people who have never known before just what the influences were which broke their nerves and weakened their hearts awake to an understanding which makes the most ardent reformers of them. A New York correspondent of the London Telegraph thus describes the effect of these photographic reproductions "These canned noises proved to ee remarkably efficient in 'enlisting sup port for the anti-noise movement. In addition to the whirr an. toot of mo- tor cars, the wailing or barrel oreans. we had some noises peculiar to big American cities. such as the lugubri- ous carol of the old clothes man, the bugle call of the scissors man. the droning monologue of the Fuckster, the rumble of overhead railways, the tinkling bells of the ii ,fe sharpener. All the noises canned by the phono- graphic records were made be ore sev. en o'clock in the morning, scme in the. neighborhood of the hp .pitals They were enough to convince every one of the necessity of suupTessine the crime of noise and will help the American anti-noise society n secur- ing remedial laws"
 It would be hopeless tasi. wlicl; these intelligent people lave ss. them selves if it were not fer the .cnse of