The broad ax. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1895-19??, 1916-03-18
CITY AIR.

C4I u A4hs
City air is always more or less bad.
As a rule, more bad than less bad.
This is due to the fact that all large
cities have many kinds of industrial
plants and these plants with very few
exceptions contribute to bad outdoor
conditions, either through dust or
smoke or vapors, or all these agencies.
One of the important sanitary prob
lens connected with city life is that of
reducing to a minimum the pollution
of outdoor air. And as people must
have outdoor aid to breathe in their
homes, shops and workplaces, it follows
that if the outdoor air is contaminated
by any of the agencies mentioned, the
indoor air will also be made impure
and unwholesome.
A frequent and almost constant
source of pollution of outdoor air is
that caused by dust from many sources.
The dust that is swept up from the
streets by the prevailing winds and
carried in every direction. The dust
that comes from many industrial estab-
ishments, that is allowed to escape
through windows into the outside air.
Dust that is caused by the beating of
rugs and carpets in back yards and
on vacant lots. Dust that is caused
by shaking and beating of rugs on the
back porches, where it floats through
the open windows of adjoining ten
ants and causes annoyance and is a
frequent source of complaint to the
Department of Health.
Recently the Department has received
several complaints against the coal COM
panies of Chicago, delivering coal on
the streets in both resident and bust
ness sections, without being dampened
and shoveled from a coal wagon into
the street and again shoveled into
wheel-barrows, or other receptacles, and
conveyed into Easements. This causes
an immense amount of dust that floats
through open windows into homes,
spoils the family washing on the lines,
fills peoples lungs with a substance
that should not be there and in gen.
eral way causes great annoyance and
discomfort.
The Department of Health would
urge upon all coal dealers throughout
the city that they dampen their coal
before delivering, not before weigh
ing, but after the wagon has been
loaded and driven off the scale, so that
when it is delivered at homes or other
places it will not be the cause of nuis-
ance and complaint. While there is
no ordinance requiring that this be
done, it is so clearly a recommendation
along health lines, that the Commits
sioner of Health feels sure that coal
dealers generally will be glad to COM
ply with this suggestion. Coal dealers,
like other merchants, desire the good
will of their patrons and certainly in
no other way perhaps, might they SO
easily advance themselves in public
favor, than by doing all in their power
to mitigate this character of nuisance
which is so frequently the source of
complaint to the Department of Health.
"By their amusements shall We know
them" may be said of people. Those
that recreate and refresh are good ;
those that exhaust and depress are bad.
Two-thirds of juvenile delinquency is
easily traced to faulty recreation con-
ditions.
Caution in what you eat, good judg-
ment in what you drink and wear are
as essential to good health as alertness
in side-stepping automobiles or falling
bricks.
One may not run an elevator safely
and do something else at the same
time; but he can be courteous, cheerful
and keep his shoulders squared.