Year: 1873

need more than anything else are unanimity


and concentration. Mr. Bigelow comes before


us with tardy fault6nding, impractical as it il


hypercitical. proposing nothing better in place


OF the design which he would break down, sug-
gesting no remedy for those points which he
looks upon as evils. The managers
of the Exhibition of 1876 have
begun their work and have made good
beginning If it is the misfortune of Phila-
delphia to be warm in July the heat is not SO
great as that Of Mr.. Bigelow's imagination
when he declares that city to be "one of the
hottest places in the world" Beyond per-
adventure the Exposition will be held there,
and the voice which announces Philadelphia
to be the only appropriate place for such COM
memoration has the prestige and weight of
national unanimity


The Board Of Health and tho Harlem
Flats.
The failure to increase nuisance is not
necessarily its abatement Thus the action of
the Board of Health in causing an Interrupt
ton in the work Of dumping the city's sweep
ings at Harlem has not fully met the prayer
of the petition presented them short time
since by the residents of that locality asking
for the removal Of an existing nuisance caused
by such dumping, past as well as then current


The district which We have heretofore
pointed out, lying east of Third
avenue and between Ninty-second and
1O3d streets, with broken patches beyond
extending in Q north westerly direction, Is
physically dangerous to health, apart from
upon it. These are other than the dumping
| already referred to, the extension Of Second
avenue across the swamp and the opening Of
streets at much higher grade than the marsh
operating to divide it into land-locked Sec
tions where the rain water accumulates and
stagnates. Any plan designed for its improve
ment must be comprehensive, looking forward
to it's permanent reclamation and provide
for proper filing and thorough system of
drainage. To begin with substratum of
garbage, speedily reduced by the action of the
tide to pulp or slime, is not the way to ac-
complish this That might do very wen with
little good soil spread over it to help out a





higher needs. The present Board of Health
are not supposed to be Board
of expedients merely. Their work, it is con-
templated, will be lasting in its reform of
sanitary abuses. The duty thus impoAed upon
them is heavy, but their authority is great,
and where the necessity, in their Judgment
existed would undoubtedly override theparsi-
monious policy of the present ComptrollSt and
enable them to pledge the city's credit for such
moneys as they required to carry on their
work.


It is not encouraging, however, in view of
this unrestricted power, to perceive the indif-
ference of the public alike to its authority and
the necessity that gave it birth. An ordinance
exits now prohibiting the throwing of garbage
or other refuse of the household into the
street; yet it is done every day, and
in many parts of the city the gut
ters will be found choked up and
drainage interrupted by heaps of vegetable
refuse thrown from adjacent houses. It is this
mixture which, found equally in the ash boxes,
renders the city's sweeping SO dangerous as
well as imperfect filling. They manage this
thing better in Boston. There housekeepers
are compelled to keep their garbage and ashes
separate, and they are carried away in different
carts. The ashes serve as an excellent filing
and have been extensively used in the Back-Bay
improvement Enough of this kind of filling
could be quickly obtained in this city to raise
the entire Harlem marsh to proper level if an
ordinance similar to that in Boston were en-
forced here. Without this provision the con-
tents of our ash barrels are unfit for this use,
as experience at Harlem has proven.


In the meantime the existing nuisance there
calls for an immediate remedy. That which
most naturally suggests itself as quickest
although only temporary, is prompt disinfec-
ton and deodorization of the many manure
heaps that now poison the air and offend the
sense of smell through the whole Of that dis
trict, while looking to permanent results, the
| immediate resumption of the work of filing
with proper soil or refuse and its rapid prose-
cution, with the extension of the streets and
avenues and the construction of sewers
throughout, presents the best solution of this
| health problem. Of course it is not intended
that the entire city should bear the expense of
all this improvement, but as in the case of
other city improvements, the reclaimed lots
and those adjoining, in their proper proper
ton, should share in an assessment regulated
by their appreciation in value thus occa-
stoned. Will the Board of Health look to it
The Last Indian Fight.


The story of the desperate battle which took
place q short time ago between the Pawnees