SOME PHASES OF THE WORK 
 
 OF THE 
 
 DEPARTMENT OF STREET CLEANING 
 
 OF 
 
 NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 Prepared and Published by 
 THE BUREAU OF CITY BETTERMENT 
 OF THE CITIZENS UNION 
 New York. 1906 
 
SEYMOUR DURST 
 
 When you leave, please leave this hook 
 
 Because it has heen said 
 " Sver'thing comes t' him who waits 
 
 Except a loaned hook." 
 
 Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library 
 Gift of Seymour B. Durst Old Y< >rk Library 
 
THE BUREAU OF CITY BETTERMENT 
 
 CITIZENS UNION 
 254 Fourth Avenue, New York. 
 
 COMMITTEE. 
 
 COL- CHARI.ES H. JONES R. FULTON CUTTING 
 
 CYRUS L. SULZBERGER JOHN J. MURPHY ISAAC S. WHEATON 
 
 JAMES B. REYNOLDS, Chairman, HENRY BRUERE, Secretary. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2014 
 
 http://archive.org/details/somephasesofworkOOciti 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 * Page 
 Note, Brooklyn 
 
 An Ordinance I 
 
 Foreword 2 
 
 Powers and duties of Street Cleaning Commissioners 4 
 
 Summaries— Colonel Waring — Major Woodbury 7 
 
 The house to house inquiry of the Bureau of City Betterment 11 
 
 The Brooklyn Ash Contract 14 
 
 Snow removal 17 
 
 "Incidental" expenditures of the D. S. C. under 
 
 Commissioner Woodbury 20 
 
 The purchase, sale and hiring of horses by the D. S. C .23 
 
 The rent roll of the D. S. C. under Commissioner Woodbury 25 
 
 The report of Commissioner Woodbury for the years, 
 
 1902-1903-1904-1905 27 
 
 Trimming 30 
 
 Final disposition 32 
 
 The present organization of the D. S. C 33 
 
 Street Cleaning in other cities 35 
 
 Philadelphia 35 
 
 Washington 36 
 
 St. Paul 37 
 
 St. Louis , 3 8 
 
 Rochester 38 
 
 Boston 3** 
 
 Cleveland 39 
 
 Chicago 39 
 
 Buffalo 40 
 
 Baltimore 4 1 
 
 Dresden, Germany. 4 2 
 
NOTE. 
 
 In Brooklyn the attention of the Bureau of City Better- 
 ment has been primarily called to the removal of ashes and 
 garbage, as the Commissioner states in his report that he 
 has not been able to satisfactorily attend to the cleaning of 
 streets in that borough. Indeed, the disposition of forces of 
 street sweepers plainly indicates that he has discriminated in 
 favor of Manhattan and the Bronx as against Brooklyn. Of 
 the total number of street cleaners, 2,434, 1,769 are available 
 for duty in Manhattan and the Bronx, with 487.24 miles of 
 paved street, 665 being assigned to Brooklyn with its 534.19 
 miles of paved streets. 
 
 It must be remembered, of course, that the traffic in Man- 
 hattan is vastly greater than in Brooklyn, and that in some 
 of the streets and avenues it is necessary to detail one sweep- 
 er to every three blocks. Even with the aid of this discrim- 
 ination against Brooklyn, Major Woodbury still employs a 
 smaller number of street sweepers to the mile in Manhattan 
 and the Bronx than did Colonel Waring. It would seem that 
 if the Brooklyn streets were to be properly cleaned the Depart- 
 ment must have an increase in its appropriation in order to 
 supply additional sweepers for the needs of Brooklyn. 
 
AN ORDINANCE regulating the cleaning of streets and 
 sidewalks and keeping them clean, and removing snow and 
 ice, dirt and other materials therefrom in the City of New 
 York. 
 
 Section i. No person or persons shall throw, cast or lay, 
 or direct, suffer or permit any servant, agent or employee to 
 throw, cast or lay any ashes, offal, vegetable, garbage, dross, 
 cinders, shells, straw, shavings, paper, dirt, filth, or rubbish of 
 any kind whatsoever in any street in the City of New York 
 either upon the roadway or sidewalk thereof, except that in the 
 morning before eight o'clock or before the first sweeping of the 
 roadway by the Department of Street Cleaning, in the Bor- 
 oughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx, dust from the 
 sidewalk may be swept into the gutter, if there piled, but not 
 otherwise, and at no other time. 
 
 The willful violation of any of the foregoing provisions of 
 thi's section shall be and is hereby declared to be a misde- 
 meanor and shall be punished 'by a fine of not less than one 
 dollar and not 'more than ten dollars, or by imprisonment for 
 a term of not less than one nor more than five days. 
 
 Section 4. No one being the owner, driver, manager or 
 conductor of any cart or other vehicle, or of any receptacle, 
 shall scatter, drop or spill, or permit to be scattered, dropped 
 or spilled, any dirt, sand, gravel, clay, loam, stone or building 
 rubbish, or hay, straw, oats, sawdust, shaving or other light 
 material of any sort or manufacturing trade, or hpusehold 
 waste, refuse, rubbish of any sort, or ashes or manure, gar- 
 bage or other organic refuse or other offensive matter there- 
 from, or permit the same to be blown off therefrom by the 
 wind, in or upon any street, avenue or public place. 
 
 Section 5. No person shall throw, cast or distribute in or 
 upon any of the streets, avenues or public places, or in any 
 front yards or stoops, any handbills, circulars, cards or other 
 advertising matter whatsoever. 
 
 Section 315, Charter. "It is hereby made the duty of the 
 police department and force, at all times of day and night, 
 and members of such force are hereby thereunto empowered, 
 to ... . enforce and prevent the violation of all laws and 
 ordinances in force in said city." 
 
 1 
 
FOREWORD. 
 
 In the following report an effort has been made to present 
 information relative to the Department of Street Cleaning of 
 interest to the public. The report is neither a comprehensive 
 study of the problem of street cleaning in the City of New 
 York, nor an "investigation'' of the present administration of 
 the department. It is, merely, a statement of the facts 
 from which conclusions have been drawn only when they are 
 obvious. The information contained in this report is such as 
 any citizen might obtain on inquiry and by examination of 
 the public records. For much of it the Bureau is indebted to 
 the commissioner, Major John McGaw Woodbury. 
 
 The report does not maintain that the streets of the City 
 of New York are clean. It is already public knowledge that 
 the Commissioner of Street Cleaning admits his inability 
 under present conditions either to clean the whole of Brook- 
 lyn or to clean the 230 odd miles of asphalt in Manhattan. 
 •For his failure to clean the Brooklyn streets he argues an in- 
 sufficient force at his disposal for the work to be done there. 
 That the paved mileage of Brooklyn streets is out of all pro- 
 portion to the number of sweepers employea there, no one 
 will question. It is impossible, he declares, to clean sheet 
 asphalt without an abundant use of water in flushing. This 
 water he is prohibited from using. 
 
 The commissioner further states that large sections of the 
 streets on the East Side cannot be cleaned because of the 
 litter from the peddlers' pushcarts. He argues further that 
 the incessant opening of streets over which he has no control 
 and the dirt resulting from the widespread building opera- 
 tions makes the problem of clean streets a difficult, if not 
 impossible one to solve. 
 
 It is conceivable, however, that, with a sufficient force and 
 proper supervision all of the well-paved streets of the city 
 could be kept as nearly clean as it is physically possible to 
 keep clean the highways of incessant traffic and thousands of 
 horses. 
 
 Accepting the prevalent opinion that the streets are not 
 clean now and that they were clean during Colonel Waring's 
 
 2 
 
administration, the Bureau sought to determine, if possible, 
 what advantages, if any, Colonel Waring possessed over the 
 present commissioner in his war against dirty streets. The 
 comparative data of the two administrations are presented 
 on page 7. It is conclusively shown that Colonel Waring 
 commanded greater resources for the work of street clean- 
 ing than does Major Woodbury. The enormous increase in 
 population and the growth of traffic during the past ten years 
 renders difficult an accurate comparison of the efficiency of 
 the two administrations. 
 
 On the other hand. Major Woodbury has 236 miles of 
 asphalt out of a total of 401 miles of paved streets (not includ- 
 ing macadam) in Manhattan, while Colonel Waring had only 
 123 out of a total mileage of 380. It is universally recognized 
 that sheet asphalt is the least difficult pavement to clean. 
 
 In order to test the prevalent opinion of the character of 
 the work of the Department of Street Cleaning, a house to 
 house inquiry was conducted in various sections of the bor- 
 oughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. This inquiry related 
 primarily to the question of garbage, ash and rubbish collec- 
 tion, and, incidentally, to the cleaning of the streets. The 
 canvass covered 414 premises, consisting of private dwellings, 
 tenements, business houses, theatres and hotels. The dwell- 
 ings, tenements and busines houses were selected in blocks in 
 the upper east and west sides of Manhattan, in the lower east 
 and west sides, and in the center of that borough, and in the 
 tenement, business and dwelling districts in Brooklyn. The 
 facts ascertained are presented for what they are worth. 
 Every effort was made to insure the accuracy of the informa- 
 tion secured. The results of this inquiry are presented on 
 the table following page 12. 
 
 Criticism of the commissioner might well be directed 
 against his employment of padrone labor in the operation of 
 the incinerator at Delancey Street. This matter is discussed 
 on page 31. 
 
 The Bureau believes that the condition of the streets would 
 be greatly improved if the public observed the ordinance 
 printed on page 1 of this report. Colonel Waring attributed 
 a large part of his success in fighting filthy streets to the co- 
 operation of the citizens. A civic pride was developed which 
 made the ordinance forbidding the throwing of rubbish and 
 litter in the streets, an active part of the citizen's code of 
 conduct. The most casual inspection of the streets to-day 
 reveals the fact that the present administration enjoys but little 
 of this cooperation. Piles of waste paper, garbage and store 
 refuse are everywhere found upon the public highways. The 
 
 3. 
 
ordinance forbidding the sweeping of litter from sidewalks 
 into streets, after an early hour in the morning, is notoriously 
 ignored. 
 
 The Commissioner of Street Cleaning should be at once the 
 servant of the public and its instructor in good housekeeping. 
 A successful captain of men can never succeed in keeping the 
 streets clean unless he is equally successful in inspiring the 
 cooperation of the public. Major Woodbury, it is believed, 
 has hitherto failed to appreciate the importance of attempting 
 to educate the public to a realization of the fact that no street 
 can be clean unless the people who use it or live upon it refrain 
 from unnecessary littering it. This is a matter in which the 
 education of the public should be unintermittent. In this edu- 
 cation the police can materially assist by the enforcement of 
 the above mentioned ordinance, which they have hitherto ap- 
 parently ignored. 
 
 POWERS AND DUTIES OF THE STREET CLEANING 
 COMMISSIONER. 
 
 The sections of the Charter which prescribe the functions 
 of the Department of Street Cleaning place a large discre- 
 tionary power in the hands of the commissioner or head of 
 this department. His authority extends only to three bor- 
 oughs — Manhattan, the Bronx and Brooklyn — the respective 
 borough presidents having charge of the work of street 
 cleaning in Queens and Richmond. Within the territory un- 
 der his jurisdiction the commissioner has control of the 
 sweeping of the streets ; of the removal and disposition as 
 often as the public 'health and the use of the streets may 
 require, of ashes, street sweepings, garbage and other light 
 refuse and rubbish, and of the removal of snow and ice from 
 leading thoroughfares and such other streets as may be found 
 practicable. He has no control over the cleaning of macadam- 
 ized streets within the public parks or under the management 
 of the Department of Parks, or such wharves, piers and bulk- 
 heads, slips, and parts of streets as are by law committed to 
 the custody of the Department of Docks and Ferries. 
 
 One of the duties of the commissioner is to cause the re- 
 moval from the streets of unused vehicles, bales, boxes and 
 other incumbrances, allowing the owners of the property 
 seized an opportunity to redeem the same on payment of a 
 fine. Unredeemed property may be sold by the commissioner, 
 who is authorized to pay all proceeds above the expense of 
 seizure, removal and sale, to the owner. Apparently the 
 right to issue permits to builders and other persons to use 
 
 4 
 
the streets for storage purposes devolves upon the commis- 
 sioner, but there is some conflict of authority in the matter 
 and the respective borough presidents now exercise the privi- 
 lege. 
 
 The Charter clothes the commissioner with authority to 
 frame regulations controlling the use of sidewalks and gutters 
 for the disposition of sweepings, refuse and garbage, which, 
 upon approval by the Board of Aldermen, shall be published 
 as city ordinances. The existing ordinance relating to this 
 subject contains a number of prohibitory and mandatory 
 clauses, the most important of which are herein summarized: 
 
 The throwing of ashes, garbage, paper, dirt, filth, or rubbish of any 
 kind whatsoever in the streets and sidewalks, and the spilling of such 
 material in the streets from vehicles are forbidden. In the morning, 
 however, before the first sweeping of the roadway, dust from the side- 
 walk may be swept into the gutter, if there piled, but not otherwise. 
 
 No person is permitted to throw or distribute in the streets, public 
 places, or in front yards or stoops any handbills, circulars, cards or 
 advertising matter. 
 
 Persons in charge of buildings abutting upon any street where the 
 sidewalk is paved are required within four hours after the cessation of 
 a snowstorm to remove the snow and ice from the sidewalk and gut- 
 ter, the time between 9 P. M. and 7 A. M. not being included in the 
 period of four hours. 
 
 Immediately after a snowfall the Commissioner of Street Cleaning 
 is required to cause the removal of snow and ice from the crosswalks 
 and culverts. 
 
 Every street railroad is required to remove snow and ice from its 
 tracks and the spaces between, and carry away and dispose of the same. 
 Railroads are forbidden to throw snow and ice on either side of the 
 tracks, and they may only use plows and sweeping machines upon re- 
 ceiving permission from the Commissioner of Street Cleaning. Per- 
 mission to use machines may not be granted unless the railroad agrees 
 at its own expense to remove the snow thrown up by the machine. 
 
 As a sanitary measure and to make effective the work of 
 the Department of Street Cleaning, the Sanitary Code, pre- 
 pared by the Board of Health, requires householders to pro- 
 vide separate receptacles for ashes and garbage, and for- 
 bids mixing these in the same receptacles. * Rubbish, con- 
 sisting of pasteboard, paper, rags, mattresses, carpets, old 
 
 ♦Citizens frequently make the mistake of assuming that the removal 
 of dead animals from the streets is one of the duties of the Department 
 of Street Cleaning. This is an error. The Sanitary Code (section 131) 
 forbids any person other than the inspectors of the Department of 
 Health and officers of the Police Department, or persons thereto au- 
 thorized, to interfere with any dead animal in the street. 
 
 5 
 
furniture, etc., must be securely bundled and kept indoors until 
 called for by the paper carts, which are to be attracted by a 
 red "P & R" card hung- in a conspicuous place. It is per- 
 missible to put bottles, broken glass, and crockery and tin 
 cans in the ash receptacles, but all receptacles shall be kept 
 within the premises and not be removed to the stoop-line 
 until the proper time for removal. 
 
 That section of the Charter under which the actual work 
 of Street Cleaning is performed has 'been divided into two 
 classes and interpreted as follows: First, the cleaning of the 
 streets and the removal of such dirt and rubbish as would 
 ordinarily be gathered together by the sweepers ; second, the 
 removal of such substances as the public health may require. 
 Under this second division the removal of garbage from pri- 
 vate houses, and other matter injurious to the public health 
 is performed. Trade waste, boxes, shavings, sawdust, etc., 
 are not considered injurious materials, and the department is 
 under no obligation to remove them, according to an opinion 
 delivered to Commissioner Woodbury by Corporation Coun- 
 sel Rives, on June 25, 1902. Mr. Rives declares that the first 
 duty of the department should be the removal of such sub- 
 stances of animal or vegetable character as are considered 
 dangerous to the public health by the Board of Health. "Your 
 next duty," wrote Mr. Rives, "should be the sweeping and 
 cleaning of the streets themselves and the removal of such 
 material as may be collected in that way. After that should 
 come the removal of such articles as are collected from 
 houses and private property, which are most offensive or un- 
 sightly, or which the facilities at your disposal enable you to 
 remove. In this last kind of work, as well as in the work 
 of sweeping and cleaning the streets, the matter is entirely 
 within your own judgment and discretion." It is under this 
 interpretation of the Charter that the Department of Street 
 Cleaning is now conducted. 
 
 The wide latitude allowed the commissioner is obvious. In 
 utilizing the appropriations of his department he is required 
 to perform the work most necessary to preserve the public 
 health, but it is not incumbent upon him to remove the ac- 
 cumulations of trade waste, although he is not forbidden to do 
 so if he has the necessary funds at his disposal. His own 
 judgment in this matter is supreme, as it is in the matter of 
 employing machine sweepers. While the law declares that 
 the streets shall be cleaned and kept clean Tbv hand labor, 
 machines may 'be used to supplement the work in such streets 
 as may seem proper to the commissioner. Other discretionary 
 powers of the commissioner relate to the dismissal, on speci- 
 fied charges, of the members of the uniformed force, and their 
 punishment bv the imposition of fines. In addition to these 
 
 6 
 
the Charter gives the commissioner authority to perform cer- 
 tain acts, notably the right to adopt and enforce rules for the 
 administration of his department, the employees of which 
 may be called upon to work during such hours and at such 
 duties as the commissioner shall direct. He may also increase 
 the number and members of the uniformed force, providing 
 the Board of Estimate and Apportionment supplies funds for 
 this purpose ; and hire extra carts, horses and men in cases of 
 emergency. The maximum number 'of cartmen and sweep- 
 ers allowed by the Charter are, however, 1,600 and 3,100, 
 respectively. With the approval of the Board of Sinking 
 Fund Commissioners, the commissioner is authorized to lease 
 for periods not exceeding ten years suitable offices for the 
 transaction of the department's business, as well as such stables 
 and other buildings as may, from time to time, be necessary. 
 Finally, he has the power to purchase supplies ; to hire and 
 purchase new stock or plant; and to make contracts for the 
 removal of snow, and for final disposition, for periods not ex- 
 ceeding five years, of street sweepings, ashes, garbage, and 
 rubbish, such contracts to be approved by the Board of Esti- 
 mate and Apportionment. 
 
 SUMMARIES. 
 
 Colonel Waring. Major Woodbury. 
 
 In the following summaries an effort has been made to 
 compare the quantity of work and its cost in the Department 
 of Street Cleaning under Commissioner Waring with the 
 work performed and its cost under Commissioner Woodbury. 
 The data relating to Colonel Waring's administration is com- 
 paratively meagre. The report of the commissioner in 1897 
 and his published book on Street Cleaning, together with the 
 contemporaneous reports of the Department of Health and 
 the Commissioner of Public Works, have furnished such in- 
 formation concerning the administration of the department in 
 the years 1896 and 1897 as are herein set forth. The com- 
 parison was embarrassed from the very start by not only 
 the limited amount of data obtainable from these sources, 
 hut also because of the different bases on which the reports 
 for the years 1896-1897 and 1902-1905 are framed. This ex- 
 perience again emphasizes the need of immediate reform in 
 the method of framing departmental reports. It strongly in- 
 dicates the necessity of adopting some system of accounting 
 and reporting, which will facilitate, or even make possible, 
 an illuminating comparison of the operations of a depart- 
 ment in different years and under different administrations. 
 Such comparisons are highly instructive, and a reform which 
 would make these comparisons possible would be of the 
 greatest public benefit. 
 
 7 
 
Colonel Waring. 
 
 Year. Population. Cost of Street Cleaning. Cost per capita. 
 
 1896 1,934,077 $2,970,700.00 $1,535 
 
 1897 1,990,881 2,949,002.40 1. 48 1 
 
 Average per capita cost for the two years, $1,508. 
 
 Major Woodbury. 
 
 Year. Population. Cost of Street Cleaning. Cost per capita. 
 
 1902 3465,998 $5,144,822.36 $1484 
 
 !9Q3 3.53^366 5,3i7,50i-85 1505 
 
 1904 3,640,234 5,441,917.66 1.494 
 
 1905 3v52,734 5,662,215.38 1.508 
 
 Average per capita cost for the four years, $1,497. 
 
 In each instance the cost of street cleaning includes gar- 
 bage and ash collection, and final disposition, rents and sup- 
 plies, but excludes cost of snow removal and increases in 
 stock and plant. 
 
 In 1897, $1,361,129 was spent on street sweeping alone. The 
 total mileage of paved streets (not including macadam) in 
 Manhattan and the Bronx (old City of New York) was 426.32, 
 the amount allowed for each mile being $3,192.74. 
 
 In 1905 there were an average of 1018 miles of paved streets 
 (not including macadam) under the jurisdiction of the Depart- 
 ment of Street Cleaning within the Boroughs of Manhattan, 
 the Bronx and Brooklyn. The expenditure for sweeping alone 
 was $2,137,961.94 or $2,100.15 per mile. 
 
 In 1897 there were 1614 sweepers available for 426.32 miles 
 of paved streets in Manhattan and the Bronx (old City of 
 New York), making the distance to be covered by each sweep- 
 er .264 miles. 
 
 In 1905 there were 2434 sweepers available for an average 
 of 1018 miles of paved streets in the Borough of Manhattan, 
 the Bronx and Brooklyn, making the distance to be covered 
 by each sweeper .418 miles. Six hundred and sixty-five of the 
 total number of sweepers were on December 31, 1905, assigned 
 to the 534.19 miles of paved streets in Brooklyn, making a 
 distance to be covered by each sweeper of .80 miles. 
 
 The remaining 1769 sweepers were available on the same 
 date for cleaning the 487.24 miles of paved streets in Man- 
 hattan and the Bronx, making the distance to be covered by 
 each sweeper .275 miles. 
 
 In 1897 (the first year of the separate collection of gar- 
 bage) the D. S. C. collected 164,422 cartloads of garbage. 
 
 8 
 
The population on July 3, 1897, was estimated by the Board 
 of Health at 1,990,881. The collection per capita of popula- 
 tion was, therefore, .082 cartloads. 
 
 In 1905 the D. S. C. collected 333,180 cartloads of garbage, 
 or .088 cartloads per capita of population. 
 
 In 1897, 1 9<3&3 cartloads of garbage were collected by per- 
 mit (private) carts, or .105 of the total collection. 
 
 In 1905, 17,890 cartloads of garbage were collected by per- 
 mit carts, or .05 of the total collection. 
 
 (The garbage collected by permit carts is of the richest 
 variety, i. e., that secured from hotels, restaurants, private 
 establishments, etc. Its collection by the D. S. C. is a benefit 
 to the city, inasmuch as the quality of the garbage affects the 
 product in utilization and the value of that product governs, 
 in part, the cost of the final disposition.) 
 
 Colonel Waring states that about 800,000 cartloads of do- 
 mestic ashes were collected in the year 1897. On this basis 
 the ashes collected per capita of population was .4 cartloads. 
 
 (Under the present system of collection, ashes and street 
 sweepings are mixed. It is, therefore, impossible to deter- 
 mine the ash collection per capita of population.) 
 
 In 1900 (Percy Xagle, Commissioner), the total collection 
 of ashes, street sweepings, garbage and refuse was 2,531,160 
 cartloads, of which 473,009 cartloads were collected by permit 
 carts. In other words, .186 of all material collected was by 
 permit carts. 
 
 Similarly, in 1905, the total collection of ashes, street 
 sweepings, garbage and rubbish was 2,916,110, of which 560,- 
 340 cartloads were collected by permit carts. In other words, 
 .192 of the total collection was made by permit carts. 
 
 A comparison of the cost of carting under Colonel Waring 
 and now is vitiated because of the different significance of 
 this term in the two administrations. Under Colonel Waring 
 "wages, rentals, administration, etc.," (Report 1897) were 
 charged under this heading. Under the present administra- 
 tion the carting account covers "salaries of drivers, hostlers, 
 mechanics, mechanics' helpers, automobile enginemen," also 
 the feeding and shoeing of most of the department horses 
 (Budget, 1906), but not rentals, purchases and administra- 
 tion as in Commissioner Waring's time. On this basis the 
 carting accounts were in the four years as follows : 
 
 Waring 
 
 Woodbury 
 
 1896 
 $903,000 
 
 1897 
 $897,833 
 
 $1,648,491 
 
 1902 
 
 1905 
 $1,747,686 
 
 75.7 cents 74.1 cents 
 
 per cartload per cartload 
 
 (Report 1906) (Report 1906) 
 
 9 
 
Col. Waring states in his report for 1897 that the cost of 
 collecting ashes alone was 80 cents per cartload. 
 
 Mileage of paved streets, exclusive of macadam, old City of 
 New York, south of Harlem River, 1897: 
 
 Specification granite 1 59.47 
 
 Square granite 
 
 Specification trap 43-84 
 
 Belgian trap 34.45 
 
 Cobble .10 
 
 Sheet asphalt I2 3- I 9 
 
 Block asphalt 5.68 
 
 Karri wood .08 
 
 380.02 
 
 Mileage of paved streets, exclusive of macadam, Borough of 
 
 Manhattan, 1905 : 
 
 Oblong granite 104.82 
 
 Square granite 4.90 
 
 Oblong trap 2 7-37 
 
 Belgian trap 3.14 
 
 Sheet asphalt 2 35-95 
 
 Block asphalt 22 -47 
 
 Cobble .79 
 
 AYood block 1.51 
 
 400.95 
 
 FIXAL DISPOSITION. 
 
 In 1896, 2,592,000 cubic yards of material were disposed of 
 by the Department of Street Cleaning, most of it at sea. The 
 total cost of this disposition was $377,900, the cost per cubic 
 yard being $0.14. 
 
 In 1902, 5,301,930 cubic yards of material were disposed of 
 by the department. The total cost of the disposition was 
 $938,633.41, or $0,177 per cubic yard. 
 
 In 1905, 6,114,540 cubic yards of material were disposed of 
 at a total cost of $1,179,765 or $0,192 per cubic yard. 
 
 The figures for the cost of final disposition in 1897 are not 
 contained in Colonel Waring's report. In that year separation 
 of garbage from ashes and rubbish was begun. In 1896, the 
 year for which the figures are given, and before, all collections 
 were mixed and dumped into the sea. Under the present sys- 
 tem garbage is taken by a contractor to Barren Island for 
 utilization. Ashes are used for land-fill at Riker's Island and 
 elsewhere, and an increasing quantity of rubbish is burned in 
 incinerators which develop power for lighting purposes. 
 
 10 
 
The cost of final disposition is less than the figures given, owing 
 to the income derived from the privilege of "trimming" the 
 dumps, scows and incinerators, i. e., the selection therefrom of 
 saleable material. This income, however, is not credited to the 
 Department of Street Cleaning, but to the Sinking Fund. A 
 part of this income is in the form of labor performed at the 
 Delancey Street incinerator by employees of the trimming 
 contractor. 
 
 THE HOUSE TO HOUSE INQUIRY OF THE BUREAU OF 
 
 CITY BETTERMENT. 
 
 During the week beginning March n, 1906, the Bureau of City 
 Betterment conducted a house to house inquiry regarding the ser- 
 vice rendered by the Department of Street Cleaning. The fol- 
 lowing questions were asked at 414 different 'buildings occu- 
 pied by 2,957 tenants or owners : 
 
 1. Is your garbage collected by the D. S. C. or by a private 
 cartman? 
 
 2. Are your ashes collected by the D. S. C. or by a private 
 cartman? 
 
 3. If by the D. S. C. at what hour is your garbage usually 
 collected? 
 
 4. If by the D. S. C. at what hour are your ashes usually 
 collected? 
 
 5. Are you required to fee the city ash and garbage or paper 
 collectors in order to have your work satisfactorily and regu- 
 larly performed ? 
 
 6. Criticism of the character of the service rendered bv 
 the D. S. C. 
 
 7. Criticism of the cleaning of your street. 
 
 These questions were asked of persons living or doing busi- 
 ness in different sections of the city as follows : 
 
 MANHATTAN. 
 
 1. Residence 'block, all private houses. Centrally located 
 (both sides of street). 
 
 2. Two (2) blocks, business section, low r er Manhattan, 
 west of Broadway (both sides of street). 
 
 3. Tenement blocks as follows : 
 East Side. 
 
 Grand Street: Chrystie Street to Eldridge Street. Two 
 (2) blocks (both sides of street). 
 
 i : i 
 
Allen Street : Delancey Street to Rivington Street. One 
 block (both sides of street). 
 
 Essex Street : Stanton Street to East Houston Street. 
 One block (both sides of street). 
 
 East Broadway: Montgomery Street to Gouverneur 
 Street. One block (both sides of street). 
 
 East 106th Street: First Avenue to Second Avenue. One 
 block (both sides). 
 
 West Side. 
 
 West 66th Street: Central Park West to Columbus 
 Avenue. One block (both sides). 
 
 West 68th Street: Amsterdam Avenue to Eleventh 
 Avenue. One block (north side). 
 
 West 69th Street : Six tenements. 
 
 West 62d Street: Two tenements. 
 
 BROOKLYN. 
 
 32 tenement buildings. 
 20 business buildings. 
 73 residences. 
 
 Of the 414 buildings, garbage 'is collected at 305. Of this 305 
 12 per cent, is by private cartmen. 
 
 Ashes are collected at 387 of all buildings ; 12 per cent, of 
 that number by private cartmen. 
 
 Paper and rubbish is collected at all 414 buildings, 29 per 
 cent, being by private cartmen and push-cart men. 
 
 In Manhattan, of 192 tenement buildings, garbage is col- 
 lected at 160 by the city and at 2 by private cartmen. At 30 
 the garbage is either burned or of such small quantity that it 
 is mixed with ashes. 
 
 Ashes are collected by the city at 187, by private at 4. 
 
 Paper and rubbish are collected by the city at 163 and by 
 private at 11. 
 
 In the case of 45 of the 192 tenements, garbage and ashes 
 are collected in the afternoon, all others reporting collections 
 from 7- 1 1 A. M. 
 
 At 19 tenements the collections were reported unsatisfac- 
 tory. 
 
 At 6 "tips" were said to be required. 
 
 46 per cent, of all buildings at which inquiries were made 
 were Manhattan tenements. 
 
 12 
 
DEPARTMENT OF STREET CLEANING 
 
 MANHATTAN 
 
 POPULATION 
 
 GARBAGE 
 
 ASHES 
 
 PAPER AND RUBBISH 
 
 C'OLLECl 
 
 
 Fees or 
 
 Bldgs. 
 
 
 Ten- 
 
 Resi- 
 
 City 
 
 vate Private Hours 
 
 
 Pri- 
 
 Private 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Hotels, 17 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 L6 92.8 5-7 A.M. 
 
 5 
 
 12 
 
 69.6 
 
 5-7 A.M. 
 
 4 13 75.4 
 
 5-8 A.M.I 
 
 17 
 
 
 
 Theatres, ] 5 
 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 100. 5-7 A.M. 
 
 
 13 
 
 86.6 
 
 5-7 A.M. 
 
 4 14 77.7 
 
 5-8 A.M. 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 E. 65th, Madison to Fifth 
 
 R 
 
 21 
 
 21 
 
 
 105 
 10 
 
 5 
 
 16 76. A.M. 
 
 
 16 
 
 76. 
 
 A.M. 
 
 5 16 76. 
 
 Irregular 
 
 2 
 
 40. 
 
 
 Worth, Broadway to Church 
 
 B 
 
 19 
 
 2 
 
 US 
 
 NONE 
 
 3 
 
 
 Night 
 
 b {% P 5(T 
 
 Night 
 
 IS 
 
 
 
 Barc lay. W. Broadway to Church 
 
 B 
 
 25 
 
 4 
 
 
 20 
 
 1 
 
 Night 
 
 15 
 
 2 
 
 11.7 
 
 Night 
 
 8 17 68. 
 
 Night 
 
 '' 
 
 
 
 One block, both .ides 
 
 W. 66th, Central Park west to Columbus 
 
 T 
 
 •28 
 
 245 
 
 
 1225 
 
 23 
 
 2 8. 8-9 A.M. 
 
 
 3 
 
 10.7 
 
 7-8 A.M. 
 
 2* 2 7.6 
 
 
 24 1 
 
 4. 
 
 
 Grand, Chrystie to Eldridge 
 
 T 
 
 31 
 
 88 
 
 
 440 
 
 21 
 
 8-9 A.M. 
 
 30 
 
 ' 
 
 3.2 
 
 8-9 A.M. 
 
 bisli Paper 
 
 22 9 29. 
 
 Irregular 
 
 25 
 
 19.3 
 
 
 Allen, Delancey to Rivington 
 
 T 
 
 24 
 
 374 
 
 
 1S70 
 
 19 
 
 9-10 A.M. 
 
 23 
 
 
 
 9-10 A.M. 
 
 19 with garbage 
 ami ashes 
 
 Irregular 
 
 18 5 
 
 21.7 
 
 
 Essex, Stanton to E. Houston 
 
 T 
 
 25 
 
 310 
 
 
 1550 
 
 24 
 
 3 P.M. 
 
 £0 
 
 
 
 3 P.M. 
 
 25 
 
 Irregular 
 
 18 7 
 
 28. 
 
 
 E.Broadway, Montgomery to Gouverneur 
 
 T 
 
 20 
 
 111 
 
 
 555 
 
 20 
 
 A.M. 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 P.M. 
 
 20 
 
 Irregular 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 E. 106th, First to Second 
 
 T 
 
 42 
 
 661 
 
 
 3305 
 
 41 
 
 I 8-9 A.M. 
 
 42 
 
 
 
 9-10 A.M. 
 
 11 
 
 Irregular 
 
 42 
 
 
 
 W. 68th, Amsterdam to Eleventh 
 
 T 
 
 
 352 
 
 
 1700 
 
 12 
 
 7 9 A.M. 
 
 17 
 
 
 
 9-11 A.M. 
 
 s 
 
 Irregular 
 
 17 
 
 
 
 W. 69th, 214-220, even only 
 
 T 
 
 4 
 
 174 
 
 
 870 
 
 .4 
 
 7-9 A.M. 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 9-11 A.M. 
 
 4 
 
 Irregular 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 W. 62nd, 213-215, odd only 
 
 T 
 
 1 
 
 4s 
 
 
 240 
 
 BURNED 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 BURNED 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 BROOKLYN 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 N. 8th, Havemeyer to Bedford 
 
 T 
 
 
 104 
 
 
 970 
 
 24 
 
 8 A.M. 
 
 30 
 
 
 
 8 A.M. 
 
 30 
 
 Irregular 
 
 30 
 
 
 
 Fu.to„, saa-is 
 
 B 
 
 20 
 
 
 20 
 
 25 
 
 4 
 
 2 33. 8-9 A.M. 
 
 19 
 
 1 
 
 5. 
 
 8-9 A.M. 
 
 17 3 15. 
 
 6-9 A.M. 
 
 19 , 
 
 S. 
 
 
 One block, both side! 
 
 Pierrepont, Columbia Heights to Hicks 
 
 R 
 
 28 
 
 46 
 
 
 270 
 
 24 
 
 A.M. 
 
 28 
 
 
 
 
 28 
 
 
 
 
 
 Two blocks, bolu sides 
 
 Hancock, Franklin to Nostrand 
 
 R 
 
 4.". 
 
 66 
 
 
 330 
 
 45 
 
 ' 10 A.M. 
 
 45 
 
 
 
 
 47. 
 
 Irregular 
 
 45 
 
 
 
 Totals. 
 
 
 414 2701 
 
 256 
 
 13545 
 
 268 
 
 37 12.1 
 
 339 
 
 48 
 
 12.4 
 
 
 322 92 22.2 
 
 361 22 
 
 5.7 
 
 7 
 
 R.— Residential District. B.— Business District. T— Tenement District. 
 
86 per cent, of all complaints regarding collection were re- 
 ceived from 'tenants in these tenements. 
 
 383 answers were received to the inquiry concerning criti- 
 cism of the collecting service. Of this number, 22, or 5 per 
 cent., stated that the service was unsatisfactory. 
 
 In reply to the inquiry whether "tips" were requested or re- 
 quired, 7 persons stated that good service could not 'be secured 
 without feeing the cartmen. 
 
 The D. S. C. collects garbage at 1 of the 17 hotels (all Man- 
 hattan) at which inquiry was made, 16 having an arrangement 
 for its removal with private cartmen. Ashes are collected by 
 the department at 5 of the hotels, and rubbish at 4. No com- 
 plaints of the D. S. C. were received at any of the hotels. 
 
 At 2 of the 15 theatres investigated, ashes were collected by 
 the D. S. C. ; paper and rubbish at 4. At none of the theatres 
 was complaint made. 
 
 In Brooklyn, of the 32 tenement buildings visited, all ashes 
 and garbage was found to be collected by the D. S. C, usually 
 before nine in the morning. There were no complaints. 
 
 One of the 20 business establishments visited found the col- 
 lection of ashes by the D. S. C. unsatisfactory and now em- 
 ploys a private cartman ; 19 have their ashes removed by the. 
 D. S. C. and are satisfied. 
 
 Of the 73 residences visited, it was found that the D. S. C. 
 collects garbage at 69, the other 4 burning it on the premises. 
 The garbage collection was reported regular and before ten 
 o'clock in the morning of each day. The D. S. C. collects ashes 
 and rubbish at all of these houses. The collection of ashes, it 
 was reported, is made from these houses on alternate days. 
 No complaints. 
 
 (Commissioner Woodbury states that Brooklyn is now re- 
 ceiving a daily collection. Report 1906.) 
 
 While the data secured concerning the collection of gar- 
 bage and ashes may fairly be taken to indicate the character 
 of the service now rendered by the D. S. C. in this respect, it 
 does not seem wise to base any conclusions on the reported 
 expressions of opinion concerning the cleaning of streets cov- 
 ered by this inquiry. The following is, however, a summary 
 of the replies received to the question concerning the work of 
 street cleaning. Each person was requested to express an 
 opinion only on the character of the work performed in the 
 street upon which he lived or carried on his business. 
 
 Four hundred and fourteen answers were received to the in- 
 quiry concerning the cleaning of the streets. 394, or 94 per 
 cent., stated that the streets were satisfactorily cleaned. 
 
 13 
 
30 per cent, of the buildings visited are located in Brooklyn. 
 50 per cent, of the complaints on street cleaning were, how- 
 ever, received from that borough. 
 
 A canvass of the members of the Citizens Union respecting 
 the cleaning of the streets has indicated a strong opinion that 
 this work is being unsatisfactorily performed. 
 
 THE BROOKLYN ASH CONTRACT. 
 
 The contract for the final disposition of street sweepings, ashes, 
 and rubbish in the Borough of Brooklyn, over the alleged non- 
 enforcement of which a controversy has arisen, was executed on 
 October 28, 1902, H. Milton Kennedy being the successful bid- 
 der. The city agreed to deliver to the contractor, at designated 
 places, all the street sweepings, ashes, and rubbish that were col- 
 lected by the carts of the Department of Street Cleaning, or other 
 carts, so far as such other carts could be controlled by the de- 
 partment. Mr. Kennedy, in turn, agreed to comply with all the 
 laws relating to dumping and final disposition of refuse, and to 
 perform the work in conformity to the specifications of the con- 
 tract. He also bound himself to conform to certain specifications 
 and plans which he submitted with his proposal, and which were 
 attached to and made a part of the contract. According to the 
 agreement, which covers a period of five years, the contractor is 
 to dispose of the material delivered at the receiving stations "in 
 such manner only as will render it unobjectionable in any and 
 every respect, for the sum of 35 cents per cubic yard." 
 
 Mr. Kennedy's proposal contemplated the building of receiving 
 stations at centrally located points on street railway lines, each 
 station to contain hoppers of sufficient capacity to hold the entire 
 refuse of any given station for twenty-four hours. The material 
 was to be removed nightly by cars and taken to the lowlands on 
 the outskirts of the borough. Mr. Kennedy agreed to construct 
 the stations of stone and iron, with sanitary and adequate facilities 
 for handling the materials of the Department of Street Cleaning 
 promptly and without nuisance. According to his proposals, the 
 stations were to be clean and of such architectural appearance as 
 not to be objectionable to any neighborhood, a blue print showing 
 the type of building being submitted by the bidder. 
 
 In order to avoid misunderstanding. Commissioner}- Woodbury 
 asked Corporation Counsel George L. Rives for an opinion as 
 to the provisions of Mr. Kennedy's bid. On October 21, 1902, 
 three days prior to the approval of the contract by the Board of 
 Estimate and Apportionment, Mr. Rives made this reply: 
 
 "It is my opinion that the description and reference to said blue 
 prints attached embodies and makes said instruments a part of the 
 contract, to and in their construction and interpretation, and that the 
 bidder may be required to build the receiving stations in accordance 
 
 U 
 
with the specifications which he has submitted, and practically after 
 the plan submitted, and that he may be required to do the hauling at 
 night." 
 
 Mr. Kennedy was to begin the work within nine months from 
 the date of execution of the contract, but on July 29, 1903. he 
 received an extension of five months and on September 4, finding 
 himself unable to carry out his agreement, he assigned the con- 
 tract to the American Railway Traffic Company, which is con- 
 trolled by the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company. In accepting 
 the contract the American Railway Traffic Company succeeded 
 in getting the Board of Estimate and Apportionment to agree to 
 several modifications, which were principally designed to change 
 the method of handling the refuse within the receiving stations. 
 Those clauses of the contract which bind the contractor to build 
 the stations of stone and iron and to do the hauling by night 
 were not, however, modified in any respect. 
 
 The thirteen stations erected by the American Railway Traffic 
 Company bear little or no resemblance to the type of building 
 proposed by Mr. Kennedy. Their architectural appearance is 
 anything but pleasing, for in the majority of instances they are 
 merely rude sheds, with corrugated iron sides and roofs held in 
 position by wooden uprights and beams. The only expensive 
 feature is an electric traveling crane for lifting the cans of refuse 
 to and from the flat cars. Residents of Brooklyn who live in the 
 vicinity of the buildings object to them on several grounds. In 
 the first place, because of the loose construction of the buildings 
 and the fact that one end — the dumping end — is not enclosed or 
 screened, it is impossible to prevent odors and clouds of dust es- 
 caping to the streets. Again, the process of "trimming the 
 dumps" is carried on daily at each station, which actually means 
 that the rubbish hauled to the building is again carted away after 
 the tin cans and bottles have been saved and the paper baled. 
 This is true even of the two stations which have incinerating 
 plants, for only a small percentage of the rubbish is consumed. 
 Trimming the dumps can scarcely be made a clean performance, 
 but the question whether this process at thirteen widely scattered 
 points in Brooklyn is a menace to the public health can best be 
 answered by the sanitary authorities. It is extremely doubtful 
 whether the contractor could be compelled to trim the dumps at 
 the point of final disposition, although the contract stated that 
 the material shall be handled in such manner only as will render 
 it unobjectionable in every respect. 
 
 The hauling through the streets by day of the materials sent 
 from the receiving stations to the lowlands for filling in purposes 
 is another source of annoyance to the Brooklynites. and the opinion 
 is widely expressed that the American Railway Traffic Company 
 should be compelled to live up to the terms of its contract in this 
 respect, and to do the hauling by night. Under existing condi- 
 
 15 
 
tions a certain percentage of ashes and street sweepings is spilled 
 in the streets while the cars are in transit, for the canvas tarpaul- 
 ins covering the cans of material do not 'wholly prevent leakage. 
 The substances that escape are frequently scattered far and wide 
 by a high wind to the serious discomfort of pedestrians, as well 
 as householders who may happen to have their windows open. 
 
 It has been publicly stated by President Wrmfcer of the Brooklyn 
 Rapid Transit Company, that the American Railway Traffic Com- 
 pany found the details of the Kennedy proposal impracticable and 
 that the existing receiving stations were built with the approval 
 of the Commissioner of Street Cleaning. The commissioner also 
 modified the contract so as to permit the material to be handled 
 during the day instead of at night. Commissioner Woodbury 
 asserts that about 6,000 cubic yards of material are delivered 
 to the receiving stations daily, and that it is impossible to trans- 
 port this quantity over the rails of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit 
 Company during the hours of darkness. He bases bis authority 
 to modify and alter the methods of the work on Clause F of the 
 contract, which reads as follows : 
 
 "That the contractor will at all times use such appliances, processes, 
 devices or methods, and employ such and so many men for the per- 
 formance of all operations connected with the work under this contract 
 as will secure a satisfactory rate of progress and quality of work, and 
 if at any time during the progress of the work such appliances, 
 processes, devices or methods, or such force or persons emplo3'ed by 
 the contractor appear to the commissioner to be inefficient, insufficient, 
 or inappropriate for securing the quality of the work required for the 
 necessary rate of progress, the commissioner shall have the power to 
 direct the contractor to increase the efficiency or improve the character 
 of the appliances, processes, devices or methods, or to increase the 
 number of persons employed by him, and the contractor shall there- 
 upon conform to such direction until or unless the same shall be modi- 
 fied or revoked by the commissioner or by the board of estimate and 
 apportionment, but the failure of the commissioner to demand such 
 increase, or efficiency, or improvement shall in no manner be deemed 
 to relieve the contractor from his obligation to secure the quality of 
 work and rate of progress established by any of the terms or conditions 
 of this contract and in case it shall at any time appear that the work 
 or any part thereof shall in any manner be unfaithful or imperfect, the 
 same shall be immediately corrected on the demand of the commis- 
 sioner, and no failure on the part of any inspector or other officer or 
 employee of the Department of Street Cleaning to call attention to 
 such defect shall be held to be a waiver of the commissioner's right 
 to direct the same to be corrected as aforesaid or to stop the commis- 
 sioner therefrom." 
 
 It is possible that Clause F can be interpreted as permitting the 
 commissioner to waive the enforcement of the proposal to build 
 a certain type of station, but it obviously does not give him dis- 
 cretionary power to waive the obligation of the removal of ashes 
 at night. The reading of the Clause would indicate that the com- 
 missioner could only alter the terms of the contract as to method, 
 if such alteration resulted in an improvement of service rendered 
 
 16 
 
or greater satisfaction not only to the commissioner but to the 
 community. The question, therefore, resolves itself into this: 
 Is the work more satisfactorily performed and is the com- 
 munity receiving service of greater efficiency from the Amer- 
 ican Railway Traffic Company by waiving its obligation to 
 remove ashes at night and permitting their removal at the 
 convenience of the company? 
 
 It is, however, proper to question the wisdom of the commis- 
 sioner's use of his alleged discretionary power in this instance, 
 in view of the fact that his decision 'has probably redounded 
 to the financial advantage of the contractor, with' no compen- 
 sating return to the city. 
 
 SNOW REMOVAL. 
 
 In 1896 the city entered into a contract for the removal of 
 snow. The payments were made by the cubic yard removed, 
 and the rate for the first year was 56 cents. "Because of the 
 letting of the contract in cubic yards," wrote H. S. Stidham, in 
 Colonel YVaring's book. "Street Cleaning," "it was necessary to 
 arrange for inspectors at the loading and dumping places', to 
 tally the loads and to protect the city's interests." Mr. Stidham 
 goes on to report that the system was a vast improvement over 
 the former method of doing the work with the department forces 
 and temporarily hired laborers, both in the matter of expedi- 
 tion and cost. The contract arrangement also released the regu- 
 lar force of the department for the performance of their routine 
 duties. "At each loading place," continues Air. Stidham, "is a 
 department foreman, who. after a cart has been loaded from 
 the street in which the work is being conducted, and if the load 
 is satisfactory in size, gives the driver a coupon signifying that 
 the snow has been taken under department supervision. At the 
 piers used as dumping-points the loaded carts move out to the 
 extreme end along one side ; the drivers dump their snow over 
 the string-pieces into the river, and submit to the inspection of 
 department subordinates, who see that the carts are entirely 
 emptied, and that no snow is dumped on the pier, and that no 
 false loads are allowed for. The empty carts return down the 
 pier in single file on the opposite side, passing a department 
 foreman at the extreme end, who receives from the driver his 
 loading coupon, and hands to a representative of the contractor, 
 standing by his side, an equivalent brass check, properly stamped 
 and numbered, as a tally of the city's indebtedness. The driver 
 then receives a voucher from the contractor's representatives, 
 showing that a load of snow has been regularly hauled and 
 dumped, and that pay for the same will be given upon presenta- 
 tion of the voucher at the contractor's main offices. This is 
 negotiable, as is also the similar voucher for hours of labor per- 
 
 17 
 
formed which is banded to each shoveler at the close of his day's 
 work; and both are honored to the bearer upon demand, at any 
 time afterward. 
 
 "The number of brass checks turned in each day by the repre- 
 sentatives of the contractor is credited to his account by the 
 snow inspector, and constitutes the basis of the bills presented 
 by him for cubic yards removed. 
 
 "After the first storm of the winter, for which the depart- 
 ment and the contractor were both unprepared, the system of 
 inspection was practically perfect. The loading and dump fore- 
 men were exceedingly strict, and the loads hauled were larger 
 than ever before. The reports of the various inspectors and 
 detectives were most encouraging, and not a suspicion of dis- 
 honesty attached itself to any of the transactions incident to the 
 loading and dumping. The controller's representative was given 
 ever facility in his inspections in all the districts, and expressed 
 the highest appreciation of the manner in which the city's in- 
 terests were being guarded." 
 
 The report of Commissioner Xagle for 1900 makes no allu- 
 sion to the question of snow removal, beyond reporting the ex- 
 penditure of $327,916.62 for this purpose. 
 
 In his report (1906) Commissioner Woodbury says: 
 
 "In the winter of 1901 and 1902 the snow removed by the Depart- 
 ment of Street Cleaning amounted to 1,653,126 cubic yards. This was 
 done at a contract price per cubic yard of 36^ cents, and hauled to the 
 waterfront, the contractor being allowed a ticket or a certain number 
 of tickets per load, depending upon its size, which were checked at the 
 point of loading and again punched or marked at the dumping place. 
 This method employed all the officers and about one thousand of the 
 men of the Department of Street Cleaning, who acted as loading and 
 dump foremen, inspectors and superintendents for the contractor. 
 This frequently brought the other work of the department, particu- 
 larly carting and collecting, nearly to a standstill, but there was no 
 other way of finally checking up the accounts. 
 
 - "In the fall of 1902 the present method of contract for the removal 
 of snow was devised, which is practically the letting of the cleaning of 
 a given area by the contractor, the cubic yardage to be determined by 
 the depth of snow as reported by the United States Weather Bureau. 
 This practically releases all but very few of the officers of the Depart- 
 ment of Street Cleaning from supervision of the contractor and per- 
 mits them to continue their regular work, while at the same time the 
 areas are not paid for unless turned in as cleaned by the district super- 
 intendents, inspected by the superintendent in charge of snow removal 
 and the officers of the Department of Finance. By this method in the 
 winter of 1904 and 1905 the snowfall of 59.2 inches was cleared from 
 907.5 miles of streets in the Boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx at 
 an average cost of 20.43 cents per cubic yard. This year the contract 
 price for the Boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx has dropped to an 
 average of 14 cents per cubic yard.'' 
 
 In answer to an inquiry addressed to him by the Bureau of 
 City Betterment, the Commissioner wrote : 
 
 iS 
 
"The change in contract for snow removal was caused, first, for the 
 reason that a large proportion of the uniformed force of the Depart- 
 ment was engaged on snow removal while the former method was 
 pursued, which militated very materially against the regular routine 
 work of the Department, and to a large extent took the sweepers 
 away from the necessary work of cleaning the crossings, keeping the 
 gutters open, etc. The present method, based on the actual snowfall, 
 totally overcomes the chance of fraud, or loss to the city by fraud; it 
 releases the members of the uniformed force formerly engaged in 
 snow removal, so that they may be occupied at their regular work. 
 Finally, the present system was adopted after consultation with Pro- 
 fessors Jacobus and Hallock of Columbia University, and Mr. Emery, 
 Chief of the Weather Bureau, for the reason that in consequence of 
 that consultation it was determined by me that the city would be best 
 served in the matter of snow removal, taking all the factors connected 
 therewith into consideration, by the adoption of the system now in 
 vogue, and also for the reasons given above."' 
 
 The contract for snow removal is made from year to year. 
 Bids are requested for' the removal of snow from each of the 
 districts into which the city is divided for D. S. C. purposes. 
 The compensation is fixed at a price per cubic yard of snow and 
 ice for the actual fall of snow in the place or places where the 
 work under this contract is carried on, the depth of the snow 
 fall to be determined by the reports of the United States 
 Weather Bureau. 
 
 In Manhattan and the Bronx 220 miles of street are sched- 
 uled for snow removal ; in Brooklyn, 78 miles. 
 
 The contract requires the contractor to provide all horses, 
 carts and labor necessary for the performance of the work, 
 and 'to secure the use of dumps and dumping- places, and to 
 keep the water in and about the slips, piers and bulkheads 
 clear from snow and ice dumped therein. Within three hours 
 after the commissioner has ordered the work to begin, the 
 contractor is required to have employed and working at least 
 twenty vehicles and fifty laborers, exclusive of officers, in each 
 and every subdivision specified in the schedule of streets to be 
 cleaned. The contractor shall begin work at points designated 
 in the beginning of the schedules and follow such schedules 
 day and night without deviation, except by orders of the com- 
 missioner or snow inspector. The commissioner may require 
 the contractor to go back over the work and perform addi- 
 tional cleanings, and he may also designate for cleaning streets 
 other than those scheduled. The commissioner is permitted 
 to use the regular forces of the Department of Street Cleaning 
 for removing snow, but the contractor shall not ask any com- 
 pensation on account of the work, nor on account of any work 
 of snow removal performed by street railroad companies with 
 the consent of the commissioner. The contract also permits 
 the commissioner to allow the contractor the use of the D. S. 
 C. horses, for which the city must be compensated. 
 
 19 
 
The amount of work done by the contractor is ascertained 
 in the following manner : Special inspectors or district super- 
 intendents stationed in each district make written reports of 
 the number of 'blocks fully cleaned during the previous twelve 
 hours, and from these reports the snow inspector computes 
 the number of cubic yards of snowfall removed by the con- 
 tractor. None but entirely completed blocks are considered 
 in the computation. 
 
 When from weather or other conditions the snow is reduced 
 to an average depth of four inches or less, it shall be discre- 
 tionary with the commissioner to declare the work under the 
 contract suspended until the occurrence of another storm. 
 
 The damage to be suffered by the contractor if he fails to 
 begin work and carry it on properly within three hours, or 
 within such further time as may be allowed by the commis- 
 sioner, is fixed at $25 for each and every hour of delay at each 
 and every block. The commissioner is also permitted to de- 
 duct from any money due the contractor $5 for each load of 
 snow dumped on any pirblic thoroughfare or at any other place 
 not approved by the commissioner. 
 
 THE "INCIDENTAL" EXPENDITURES OF THE D. S. C. 
 UNDER MAJOR WOODBURY. 
 
 The Commissioner of Street Cleaning, like the heads of 
 other city departments, is permitted by the Charter to pur- 
 chase supplies in lots not exceeding $1,000 in value, utilizing 
 for this purpose his regular appropriation or the proceeds of 
 any special revenue bonds that may be issued for the purchase 
 of new stock or plant for his department. All purchases ex- 
 ceeding $1,000 in amount must be let by public contract to the 
 lowest bidder. 
 
 It is obvious that the purchasing of supplies without public 
 letting is at once a vehicle for the distribution of a vast amount 
 of patronage and a club for the punishment of political of- 
 fenders. At the same time the method is justified by the fact 
 that it enables department heads to act quickly in cases where 
 emergency demands new equipment for the work in hand. 
 The privilege, however, can 'be greatly abused, and it fre- 
 quently happens in more than one department that during a 
 year supplies of certain kinds are purchased from time to time 
 in lots coming within the thousand dollar valuation ; whereas, 
 if such purchases were contracted for, after proper investiga- 
 tion of the needs of the department, a substantial sum of 
 money might be saved to the city. 
 
 From the records of the Finance Department, as published 
 in Supplements of the "City Record," a number of details have 
 been taken relating to the purchasing of street cleaning sup- 
 
 20 
 
plies without public letting during the four years of Commis- 
 sioner Woodbury's administration. The following table shows 
 in round figures the amounts thus expended. 
 
 1902. 
 
 Revenue Bond Fund.. $46,400 
 Appropriation Account 130,100 
 
 1903. 1904. 1905. 
 $19,950 $35,850 $61,840 
 171,530 130,200 144775 
 
 $176,500 $191,480 $166,050 $206,615 
 
 Total in round figures for the four years, $740,645. 
 
 About 28 per cent, of the above sum ($740,645) was used to 
 pay for supplies purchased from the Department of Correc- 
 tion and the state prisons, the yearly divisions being as 
 follows : 
 
 1902. J 903. 1904. 1905. 
 
 $28,000 $50,000 $44,900 $84,250 
 
 Total in round figures, $207,150. 
 
 The largest items of expenditure in 1902, irrespective of the 
 sums paid for prison supplies, included such supplies as hay, 
 oats and forage ; coal, lumber, leather, paint and rope. For 
 hay, oats and forage, $11,350 in round figures were expended, 
 three firms furnishing most of these supplies. About seven 
 dealers in Manhattan and Brooklyn supplied the 'bulk of the 
 coal, their bills ranging from 90 cents to $999.60, the total 
 approximating $7,500. Thirty-five or more separate lots of 
 lumber were purchased, the aggregate value (being $4,600, 
 which was distributed principally among four firms. On the 
 other hand, the leather, valued at $4,400, was largely supplied 
 by one company dealing in harness supplies. From a company 
 of paint dealers most of the department's paint was purchased, 
 the twenty-five or more bills amounting to $4,090, while the 
 rope, valued at $4,000, was furnished in large and small lots 
 by three dealers. 
 
 In 1903 the amounts of the more notable purchases without 
 public letting included coal, $10,400; lumber, $9,400; blankets, 
 harness and harness supplies, $9,500; sweeping machines, 
 $5,000 ; horses, $6,200 ; leather, $2,600 ; and paint, $2,600. The 
 coal purchased in large lots, amounting to $6,800, was fur- 
 nished by one dealer, the small purchases being distributed 
 among seven other merchants. Of the money expended for 
 harness and 'blankets, $4,500 was taken from the revenue 'bond 
 fund, and practically the whole of this amount went to the 
 company which furnished the leather in 1902. The same con- 
 cern also received a fair allowance of the 'balance spent for 
 these items out of the department's appropriation in 1903, this 
 also being true of the sum expended for leather. Most of the 
 horses and all of the sweeping machines were purchased with 
 
 2 1 
 
the proceeds of revenue bond sales. All but one of the horses 
 were supplied by a firm of dealers which is frequently success- 
 ful in securing contracts for furnishing the department with 
 stock. The department bought all its sweeping machines from 
 one man, while its lumber and paint came from numerous 
 dealers. Two or three lumber firms, however, were especially 
 favored. 
 
 The record for 1904 shows the following items, which, while 
 purchased in small lots, amount in the aggregate to sums of 
 considerable size : Harness, blankets and harness supplies, 
 $14,000; hardware, $10,600; sweeping machines, $9,500; lum- 
 ber, $7,400; ash cart bodies, $6,900; ash cart supplies, $6,400; 
 coal, $5,600; hose, $5,500; drugs, $4,500; wheels and hubs, 
 $4,650; paint, $3,800; leather, $3,000. 
 
 The harness, blankets and harness supplies were purchased 
 mainly from the two firms which figure largely on the depart- 
 ment's books for the four year as furnishers of such articles. 
 A general supply company and a hardware firm supplied a 
 large percentage of this material, while of the $9,500 spent for 
 sweeping .machines, $7,100 went to one company (a new name), 
 the balance being paid to the man who supplied the 'machines 
 in 1903. The ash cart bodies and parts not built by prison 
 labor were supplied by one man. Several dealers furnished 
 the department with coal, a few of the names figuring in the 
 two previous years being absent, other firms taking their 
 place. Drugs were furnished principally by one firm, and 
 paint by half a dozen firms. From the concerns which fur- 
 nished the harness supplies most of the leather was purchased, 
 while the department got wheels and hubs from several deal- 
 ers. Two companies supplied most of the hose. 
 
 The record for 1905 contains the following notable pur- 
 chases: Hardware, $11,750; harness and harness supplies, 
 $9,600; paint, $8,000; ash cart materials, $7,100; lumber, 
 $6,100; wheels and hubs, $6,000 ; tools, $3,700; drugs, $3,700; 
 machinery, $3,500; castings, $3,500; coal, $3,400; hose, $3,400; 
 building material, $3,300; horses, $3,000. 
 
 The goods were supplied in virtually the same quantities 
 during 1905 as in other years and with few exceptions by the 
 same firms. A number of firms maintained steady relations 
 with the department during the entire four years, while some 
 dropped out and were replaced by others. 
 
 22 
 
THE PURCHASE, SALE AND HIRING OF HORSES BY 
 THE DEPARTMENT OF STREET CLEANING IN 
 1902-1903-1904-1905. 
 
 The horses of the Department of Street Cleaning are pur- 
 chased principally by contract. The price paid for horses has 
 increased, due, it is said, to the general advance of prices in 
 the horse market. The horses are bought in lots ranging from 
 25 to 250. The average price paid for horses has risen from 
 1902-1905 as follows: 
 
 1902 average price, $242.40 
 
 1903 " " 272.50 
 
 1904 " " 277.50 
 
 1905 " " 295.00 
 
 Average price for four years, $271.35 
 
 The following is a report of the horses sold at auction by the 
 Department of Street Cleaning during the years 1 902- 1903 -1904- 
 1905, and the amounts received for them : 
 
 Manhattan and the Bronx 
 
 Date of No. of Horses Amount Average per 
 
 Sale. Sold. Received. Horse. 
 
 May 27, 1902 83 $4,200.00 $50.60 
 
 Dec. 26, 1902 126 4,462.00 35.41 
 
 Oct. 29, 1903 103 4,194.50 4072 
 
 Apr. 19, 1904 101 54/000 54- 16 
 
 May 16, 1904 1 55-00 55-00 
 
 Apr. 26, 1905 115 7,227.50 62.85 
 
 Oct. 11, 1905 124 7,263.00 58.57 
 
 653 $32,872.00 $50.34 
 
 On October 29, 1904, there were six (6) colts sold; they 
 brought $160.00, an average of $26.67 each. 
 
 Brooklyn 
 
 Date of No. of Horses Amount Average per 
 
 Sale. Sold. Received. Horse. 
 
 June 26, 1902 21 $933-45 $44-45 
 
 Jan. 13, 1903 55 2,959.55 53-8i 
 
 Apr. 29, 1903 72 4.340. 16 60.28 
 
 Apr. 28, 1904 45 (inc. 3 colts) 3,557-70 79-o6 
 
 Sept. 4, 1904 21 1,264.83 60.23 
 
 Apr. 28, 1905 37 (inc. 4 colts) 3.089.87 83.51 
 
 Oct. 5,1905 22 (inc. 3 colts) 1,149.94 52.27 
 
 273 $17,295.50 $63.35 
 23 
 
The following table shows the number of horses bought, lost 
 by death (shot and by disease), and sold at public auction by the 
 Department of Street Cleaning : 
 
 1902-1903 
 
 Excess Excess 
 purchased died and 
 over died sold over 
 
 Manhattan and the Bronx. Purchases. Died. Sold, and sold, purch'sed. 
 
 From Mar., 1902, to May, 1902.. 
 
 300 
 
 183 
 
 83 
 
 34 
 
 From Nov., 1902, to Jan., 1903. . 
 
 300 
 
 144 
 
 126 
 
 30 
 
 r roni wet., iyuj, to uec, 1903 • 
 
 • 250 
 
 102 
 
 103 and 
 
 
 
 
 
 6 colts. 
 
 45 
 
 Total 
 
 . 850 
 
 429 
 
 312 and 
 
 109 
 
 
 
 
 6 colts 
 
 
 Brooklyn. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 85 
 
 159 
 
 21 
 
 
 Jan., 1903, to Mar., 1903 
 
 250 
 
 119 
 
 127 
 
 4 
 
 Sept., 1903, to Oct., 1903 
 
 175 
 
 79 
 
 66 
 
 30 
 
 Total 
 
 . 5io 
 
 357 
 
 214 
 
 
 
 1904- 
 
 1905 
 
 
 
 Excess Excess 
 purchased died and 
 over died sold over 
 
 Manhattan and the Bronx. Purchases. Died. Sold, and sold, purch'sed. 
 
 From Nov., 1904, to Jan., 1905. 
 
 250 
 
 125 
 
 IOI 
 
 24 
 
 From June, 1905, to Dec, 1905. 
 
 350 
 
 
 240 
 
 no 
 
 Total 
 
 6oo 
 
 125 
 
 341 
 
 134 
 
 Brooklyn. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 80 
 
 67 
 
 59 and 
 
 
 
 
 
 4 colts 
 
 
 Dec, 1904, to Feb., 1905 
 
 200 
 
 
 
 
 Oct., 1905, to Dec, 1905 
 
 150 
 
 
 
 350 
 
 Total 
 
 430 
 
 67 
 
 59 
 
 304 
 
 Total all boroughs, 1902-1903.. 
 
 1,360 
 
 786 
 
 526 
 
 48 
 
 Total all boroughs, 1904-1905.-. 
 
 1,030 
 
 192 
 
 400 
 
 438 
 
 Total all boroughs, 1902-1905.. 
 
 2,390 
 
 978 
 
 926 and 486 
 
 10 colts 
 
 Under the Charter the Commissioner of Street Cleaning is 
 empowered to hire in an emergency men, carts and horses to sup- 
 plement the force owned by the city for the use of his department. 
 
 24 
 
During the years 1902- 1903- 1904- 1905 the Commissioner 
 hired for use in Manhattan and the Bronx alone, on 883 different 
 days, a total of 57,207 horses for the sum of $101,151.71. ' The 
 average number of horses hired each of the 883 days was 63 2-3,. 
 and the average expenditure per day for this purpose on each of 
 the 883 days was $114.54. 
 
 The following is a summary by years : 
 
 1902-1903-1904-1905- MANHATTAN AND THE BRONX. Horses hired. 
 
 No. of persons 
 hiring to D.S.C. 
 
 No. horses 
 hired. 
 
 Total No. 
 of days. 
 
 A v. No. per 
 day for days 
 hired. 
 
 Total amount 
 paid for hiring 
 horses. 
 
 ~ Q a 
 5 
 
 ^ = 
 
 Av. No. horses 
 hired from each 
 person. 
 
 Cost per day 
 of hiring. 
 
 1902 
 
 45 
 
 20,032 
 
 252 
 
 7948 
 
 $30,167.49! $670.38 | 
 
 445 
 
 1 $ii97r 
 
 1903 
 
 13 
 
 1 8,976 
 
 1 176 
 
 1 51 
 
 |$i6,70572| $1,285.05 I 
 
 690.4 
 
 1. $94-92- 
 
 
 
 
 1904 
 
 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 | 17,006 
 
 218 
 
 78 
 
 $33,995-5o| $2,124.72 | 
 
 1,062.9 
 
 1- $155-94 
 
 1905 
 
 11 
 
 10,193 
 
 1 237 
 
 1 43 
 
 |$20,2«S3.oo| $1,843-91 
 
 926.6 
 
 1 $85-58' 
 
 THE RENT ROLL OF THE D. S. C. UNDER 
 COMMISSIONER WOODBURY. 
 
 LEASES OF THE DEPARTMENT OF STREET CLEAN- 
 ING FOR THE BOROUGHS OF MANHATTAN, THE 
 BRONX AND BROOKLYN. 
 
 LEASED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF STREET CLEANING. 
 
 Number of Total 
 
 Boroughs. Buildings. Kent. 
 
 Manhattan 55 $82,546 
 
 The Bronx 7 10,310 
 
 Brooklyn 38 32,870* 
 
 Total 100 $125,726 
 
 **No rent included for Dumping Board at Coney Island Creek, which, 
 costs $5 per day for each day used. 
 
 25 
 
LEASED DURING COMMISSIONER WOODBURY'S ADMINISTRATION 
 
 Number of Total 
 
 Boroughs. Buildings. Rent. 
 
 Manhattan 45 $55,696 
 
 The Bronx 7 10,310 
 
 Brooklyn 37 29,870** 
 
 S 
 
 Total $95,876 
 
 Percentage of Buildings and Rentals 
 during Commissioner Woodbury's 
 administration to total number 
 
 leased and rented by D. S. C. . . . 89 per cent. 76.2 per cent. 
 
 **No rent included for Dumping Board at Coney Island Creek, which 
 costs $5 per day for each day used. 
 
 STABLES OF THE DEPARTMENT OF STREET 
 
 CLEANING. 
 
 Manhattan and the Bronx 
 
 Lessors Term Ann' I 
 
 Stables. Location, Name. Commenced. Expiration. Yrs. Rental. 
 
 B 
 
 618 W. 52d St. G.W.Plunkitt 
 
 Dec. 24, 1901 Dec. 24, 1906 
 
 5 
 
 $1,700 
 
 B 
 
 612-16 W. 52d G.W.Plunkitt 
 
 May 1, 1901 May I, 
 
 1911 
 
 10 
 
 4750 
 
 C 
 
 625-29 W. 130th G.W.Plunkitt *Aug. i, 1904 Aug. i, 
 
 1914 
 
 10 
 
 6,000 
 
 D 
 
 505-9 E. 116th G.W.Plunkitt 
 
 Sept. 15, 1902 Nov. 1, 
 
 1910 
 
 
 5,000 
 
 D 
 
 511-15 E. 1 16th G.W.Plunkitt 
 
 Nov. i, 1900 Nov. 1, 
 
 1910 
 
 10 
 
 2,600 
 
 E 
 
 408-10 W. 15th Jas.S. Herman Sept. 1, 1901 Sept. i, 
 
 191 1 
 
 10 
 
 7,000 
 
 F 
 
 80th & Ave. A W.F.Cunning- 
 ham 
 
 Dec. 15, 
 
 Dec. 15, 1897 
 
 1907 
 
 10 
 
 4,000 
 
 G 
 
 44-6 Hamilton Philip Collins 
 
 *Apr. 1, 1905 Apr. 1, 
 
 1915 
 
 10 
 
 7,000 
 
 H 
 
 424-25 E. 48th G.W.Plunkitt 
 et al 
 
 *June 1, 1903 June I, 
 
 1913 
 
 10 
 
 4,000 
 
 Brnx 152 Cortland Siebrand Nie- 
 wenhous 
 
 *Jul. 10, 1903 Jul. 10, 
 
 1908 
 
 5 
 
 4,000 
 
 K 
 
 219-23 W. 97th Cornelia and 
 Alice Jay 
 
 *May 1, 1905 May I, 
 
 1909 
 
 5 
 
 9.500 
 
 Anne 
 
 x 120 E. 32d. Jas. P. Lee 
 
 *May 1, 1905 May 1 
 
 1906 
 
 1 
 
 i.35o 
 
 10 
 
 Total Stables. 
 
 
 
 
 $56,900 
 
 *Leases negotiated during Commissioner Woodbury's administration. 
 
 Total annual rental of leases made by Commissioner Wood- 
 bury, $31,850. 
 
 76 
 
Brooklyn 
 
 Lessor's Term Ann I 
 
 Stables. Location. Name. Commenced. Expiration. Yrs. Rental. 
 
 B 
 
 Butler & 5th av. 
 
 Rbt.H.Taylor 
 
 *Oct. 1, 1904 Oct. 
 
 i, 
 
 1909 
 
 
 $55° 
 
 B 
 
 Butler & 5th av. Robt. Furey 
 
 *Jan. 20, 1905 Jan. 
 
 20, 
 
 1915 
 
 10 
 
 6,000 
 
 C 
 
 Nostrand av. & 
 Sterling pi. 
 
 F.D. Creamer 
 
 *Jan. 8, 1905 Jan. 
 
 8, 
 
 I9T0 
 
 5 
 
 2,500 
 
 D 
 
 Kent av. & N. 
 I3th 
 
 Hy. C.Fischer 
 
 *Nov.22,i9o5 Nov. 
 
 22, 
 
 1910 
 
 5 
 
 2,700 
 
 E 
 
 Jamaica av. & 
 Gillen pi. 
 
 W.F.Donovan 
 F.D. Creamer 
 
 Oct. 29, 1901 Oct. 29, 191 1 
 *Dec. 3, 1902 Dec. 3, 1912 
 
 10 
 10 
 
 3,000 
 4,000 
 
 G 
 
 Atlantic av. & 
 Utica 
 
 Mich'l Murphy 
 
 *May 1, 1904 May 
 
 I, 
 
 1909 
 
 5 
 
 1,500 
 
 H 
 
 4808 4th av. 
 
 Bridget Hart 
 
 *Oct 1, 1903 Oct. 
 
 
 1913 
 
 10 
 
 1,800 
 
 6 
 
 Total Stables. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 $22,050 
 
 ^Leases negotiated during Commissioner Woodbury's administration. 
 Total annual rental of leases made by Commissioner Wood- 
 bury, $19,050. 
 
 COMMISSIONER WOODBURY'S REPORT. 
 
 The report recently issued by the Commissioner of the Depart- 
 ment of Street Cleaning was for the four years ending Decem- 
 ber 31, 1905. During that period no official report was pub- 
 lished by this department, contrary to specific charter require- 
 ments. Had ithe term of the present Commissioner expired on 
 January 1, the public would have been left without an official 
 statement from him on the administration of his office. 
 
 The report itself is unsatisfactory. Intended to cover the 
 period of four years, it fails to take the work of each year un- 
 der separate review. As a whole, the report resemfoles more 
 nearly a discursive lecture on street cleaning in Xew York than 
 a statement of what the Department of Street Cleaning has ac- 
 tually achieved, and at what expense, during the past four years. 
 Twenty-two of its fifty-seven pages are devoted to the question 
 of final disposition. Of these twenty-two, one and one-half 
 pages are filled with a description of the methods employed by 
 the Sanitary Utilization Company in carrying out its contract 
 with the city for the final disposition of garbage. It is not 
 stated, however, what are the terms of the contract, nor is it 
 shown that the city could not profitably perform this work itself. 
 Three pages are given over to the methods and achievements 
 of the American Railway Traffic Company in disposing of ashes 
 in Brooklyn. Here, again, there is no statement of the terms 
 of the contract nor any reference to its specification of the 
 
 21 
 
methods to be employed in its fulfillment. Finally, eleven pages 
 are devoted to a technical description of one of the department's 
 incinerators. 
 
 Both for the public and the department itself a lucid and de- 
 tailed report is of the highest importance. On one hand, the 
 public requires information of the cost and extent of the depart- 
 ment's operations and knowledge of the problems of administra- 
 tion, to judge fairly of the work of the heads of departments. 
 ( )n the other hand, heads of departments can hardly expect the 
 support and confidence of the public unless it is advised of the 
 facts relative to their performances. Alt present the reports of 
 the departments are composed as the head of the department 
 reporting may see fit. It is not prescribed what information the 
 reports shall contain nor in what manner the department ac- 
 counts shall be displayed. Indeed, the keeping of their accounts 
 by departments is entirely a fortuitous matter. 
 
 The report under consideration abounds in general state- 
 ments which in no sense adequately convey an exact impression 
 of the operation discussed. This deficiency may be illustrated 
 by the following: On page 23, under the title of ''Purchase and 
 Issue of Supplies," the report reads, "The supplies necessary for 
 the conduct of the department are purchased from time to time 
 as needed, and if in small quantities, and not large in cost, 
 orders may be sent direct, but for supplies that may be needed 
 in very large quantities and at great cost, contracts are let," etc. 
 It would have been more instructive to state that the law allows 
 buying without contracts in amounts up to Si.oco, and that the 
 Department of Street Cleaning had availed itself of the privilege 
 so allowed to the extent of purchasing without public letting, 
 during the four years, goods to the value of $700,000 and more. 
 Again the report states that the "property responsibility of the 
 Department is most accurately kept and accounted for," but it 
 nowhere states what this property is or amounts to or what 
 additions were made to it, or what amount of it was disposed of 
 and at what price during the four years under review. The re- 
 port should have fully accounted for all property in the keeping 
 of the Commissioner of the Department of Street Cleaning. It 
 should have been shown what property was delivered into his 
 custody at the commencement of his term, what disposition, if 
 any, was made of such property, what additions purchased, etc., 
 with an accompanying analyzed statement of the expenditures 
 for stock and plant. The public has the right to know, for ex- 
 ample, that 2390 horses were purchased at an average cost of 
 S271.25 per horse during this period, and that 978 died, while 
 926 were sold at an average price of $56.84. 
 
 It seems entirely reasonable to demand that the heads of de- 
 partments account for all money expended by them in a detailed 
 
 28 
 
and intelligible manner. It is believed that the report under 
 consideration should have such accounts, properly certified by 
 the Commissioner of Accounts. 
 
 Expenditures in the report are classified under several ac- 
 counts, grouped a s working accounts and others. The classifi- 
 cation of working accounts is nowhere explained. The reader 
 is left to guess the distinction between the accounts entitled 
 "General Administration," for example, and "Administration/' 
 He has no means of ascertaining the significance of the account 
 entitled "Sweeping," nor what is included under the item of 
 "Carting." 
 
 It is earnestly hoped that the distinguished commission now 
 considering the question of reform in the accounting methods 
 of the city will recommend the inauguration of departmental 
 administrative accounts to be, from time to time, made public. 
 The Bureau of City Betterment is not prepared to suggest a 
 method for keeping and publishing such accounts. It desires, 
 however, to make an urgent appeal for the consideration of this 
 important matter by the properly qualified commission. 
 
 Under the head of cash receipts the statement shows the 
 receipts by the department from incidental sources. No state- 
 ment is given of the funds made available for the purposes of 
 the department by appropriation, or issue of stock or revenue 
 bonds. 
 
 Among the items in the statement of cash receipts is placed 
 the receipts from the privilege of trimming the scows at the 
 dumps. These receipts are referred to on page 30 of this 
 pamphlet, under the head of "Trimming." They are shown to 
 have decreased during the past four years, by a statement of the 
 report of the commissioner, from $92,000 to $58,000. On pa^e 
 34 of the report of the Department of Street Cleaning, 11 the 
 analysis of the cost of operating the incinerator plant under the 
 Williamsburg Bridge, it is stated that there is included no cost 
 for labor charges in the incinerator plant, "because the privilege 
 of picking out the marketable rubbish on the belt conveyor pays 
 the operating expenses." This statement is likely to mislead. 
 The person to whom the privilege for trimming is given agrees 
 to pay the city a certain sum of money each week for this privi- 
 lege as long as it is accorded him. As a matter of fact, the 
 trimmer is allowed about $500 per week for furnishing labor 
 to feed and stoke the incinerators. The allowance is deducted 
 from the payments made by him for his privilege. In other 
 words, money derived from the sale of city property (for that 
 is what the paper, rags, etc., taken by the trimmer, properlv is), 
 money which, according to law, should be deposited in the Sink- 
 ing Fund, is diverted to the payment of the labor cost of operat- 
 ing the incinerators. The city loses this revenue for sinking 
 
 29 
 
fund purposes, and the department which appropriates it makes 
 no accounting for it either in the cost of operating the incin- 
 erators or elsewhere. This appears to he a most flagrant viola- 
 tion of business-like methods. Its continuance should not be 
 tolerated. The argument that this practice results in a saving 
 to the city is most specious. Xo one profits by it except, per^ 
 haps, the trimmer who doubtless derives an income from pro- 
 viding laborers to the city, who receive from him less wages 
 than he, in turn, receives for their labor from the Department 
 of Street Cleaning. 
 
 TRIMMING. 
 
 The process by which material of market value is extracted 
 from the rubbish and ashes, after their removal to the dump- 
 ing boards, is called "trimming," and the work is performed 
 by Italians employed by the contractor having the trimming 
 privilege. The income derived by the city from the letting of 
 the trimming privilege has fallen from $92,579.20 in 1902 to 
 $58,028.00 in 1905. This notable decrease, Commissioner 
 Woodbury stated in reply to an inquiry, is due to three cir- 
 cumstances: First, the greater amount of labor furnished by 
 the trimming contractor in connection with the stoking of 
 incinerators and the trimming of scow t s ; second, the break in 
 the paper market during the year 1904; third, the fact that the 
 large department stores have discovered that their daily output 
 of paper may be converted into cash, which accounts for a 
 smaller quantity being sent to the dumps. 
 
 The commissioner's third explanation can scarcely be taken 
 at its face value, for the practice of selling department store 
 waste is by no means of recent date. Such stores have long 
 considered their waste paper and cardboard as much an article 
 of merchandise as new cloth or shoes, and it is not their policy 
 to throw away anything that is saleable. If there has been a 
 decrease in the quantity of convertible materials delivered to 
 the dumps in the last four years, it is probably due to the activ- 
 ities of private paper collectors, wdiose numbers are constantly 
 growing. These private collectors, most of whom are Italians, 
 cover the city thoroughly in wagons or push carts. They 
 watch for the "P & R" card of the Department of Street Clean- 
 ing, and frequently succeed in getting the householder's paper 
 and rubbish before the department's carts arrive. The paper 
 thus gathered is disposed of to dealers in waste materials. 
 
 Xo regular contract has been made for trimming by the De- 
 partment of Street Cleaning since July, 1903, when a new 
 contractor defaulted; and Commissioner Woodbury asserts 
 that he is under no legal obligation to enter into contracts for 
 this purpose, although he intends to do so soon. At the pres- 
 
 30 
 
cut time two Italians have an agreement which binds them to 
 load and trim the scows and Barney dumpers, and to pay for 
 the privilege of appropriating so much of the material as may 
 be taken to them at the following rates per week, to be paid in 
 
 advance : 
 
 Dumps. Ashes. Paper and Rubbish. Total. 
 
 Clinton Street $55-QO $55«oo 
 
 Stanton " 75-°° 75-°° 
 
 29th " $20.00 80.00 100.00 
 
 46th " 
 
 61 st " 25.00 100.00 125.00 
 
 80th " 50.00 120.00 170.00 
 
 110th " 25.00 105.00 130.00 
 
 Lincoln Avenue 10.00 75-°° 85.00 
 
 Canal Street 10.00 10.00 
 
 30th " 25.00 75-00 100.00 
 
 134th " 25.00 125.00 • 150.00 
 
 47th " 50.00 150.00 200.00 
 
 $1,200.00 
 
 The agreement permits the contractor to demand reductions 
 in his payments in case of any change in method resulting in 
 the diversion of paper and rubbish from any dump to a dump 
 not included in the above. 
 
 Only about $700 of the above amount is paid to the city in 
 cash, for the contractor is permitted by Commissioner Wood- 
 bury to pay the equivalent of the balance in labor, furnished 
 to the Delancey Street incinerator, which generates electric 
 power to light the Williamsburg Bridge. Since September 
 18, 1905, a constant deduction of $100 a week has been made 
 to the contractor for day work at the incinerator, he being 
 expected to furnish men enough to do the necessary feeding 
 and stoking. About a month later, on October 23, the trim- 
 ming contractor began to furnish men for night work, receiv- 
 ing in addition to the regular rebate of $100 the sum of 25 
 cents an hour per man, although it was stipulated that the 
 total amount paid for labor each night should not exceed $60, 
 exclusive of $3 per night or $21 per week of seven days for a 
 foreman. Twenty men working twelve hours each night at 
 25 cents an hour per man would entitle the contractor to a 
 rebate of $60. Therefore the maximum sum per week that he 
 could be allowed for labor under the agreement is $541, divided 
 as follows: Day labor, $100; night labor, $420; foremen, $21 
 
 31 
 
The laborers thus supplied are designated as feeders, stok- 
 ers, Moormen, and the dump inspector assigned to the incin- 
 erator is required to keep a record of their number, and the 
 hours of their employment. Upon this record the amount of 
 the rebate for night work is computed, the total varying from 
 week to week. 
 
 The department also has a weekly agreement with a con- 
 tractor in The Bronx, whereby he pays $144 in advance for the 
 privilege of collecting all paper and light refuse delivered to 
 the following dumps : Lincoln Avenue, One Hundred and 
 Forty-fourth Street and Whitlock Avenue, One Hundred and 
 Sixty-second Street and Jerome Avenue, and the corner of 
 Garden Street, west of the Southern Boulevard. The con- 
 tractor also receives, free of charge, all ashes delivered by the 
 department to the Jerome Avenue dump. 
 
 The weekly returns of the Department of Street Cleaning to 
 the City Chamberlain, from the letting of the trimming privi- 
 lege, from January 1, 1906, to March 24, 1906, amounted to 
 $8,859.50, or an average for the twelve weeks of $738.29, which 
 is equivalent to $38,391.08 a year. 
 
 The city derives no revenue from trimming at the Brooklyn 
 receiving stations, for the final disposition of paper and rub- 
 bish, as well as of ashes and street sweepings, is placed en- 
 tirely in the hands of the American Railway Traffic Company 
 by the terms of its contract with the city. 
 
 FINAL DISPOSITION. 
 
 The ashes, street sweepings, and a part of the rubbish col- 
 lected in Manhattan and The Bronx are utilized 'by the bureau 
 of final disposition in making new land at Riker's Island and 
 other places owned by the city and by private individuals. 
 About one-fifth of the total output of rubbish collected in the 
 Boroughs of Manhattan and The Bronx is handled at the De- 
 lancey Street incinerator plant, where the heat is used to gen- 
 erate electricity for lighting the Williamsburg Bridge at night. 
 A smaller incinerator on the West Forty-seventh Street pier 
 also handles a good deal of rubbish and generates electricity 
 for the lighting of one of the department stables. 
 
 In Brooklyn the American Railway Traffic Company has a 
 contract for finally disposing of ashes, street sweepings and 
 rubbish. The Department of Street Cleaning hauls this ma- 
 terial to the thirteen receiving stations of the company, which 
 transports the ashes and street sweepings by car to various 
 land-fills on the outskirts of the borough. Most of the paper 
 and rubbish is sold by the company, although a small percent- 
 age is consumed by incinerators. 
 
 32 
 
The final disposition of garbage is carried out under con- 
 tract with the Sanitary Utilization Company. The department 
 hauls the material to piers set aside for the dumping of sub- 
 stances classified as garbage, and the company transports the 
 material on its own scows to Barren Island, where a factory 
 for the utilization of animal and vegetable product is located. 
 Here the garbage is reduced to grease and fertilizer filler. 
 
 Under the new contract for the final disposition of the gar- 
 bage collected in the Borough of Manhattan, which becomes 
 efTective August i, the city will pay the contracting company 
 $148,000 a year for five years. The average daily amount of 
 garbage to be handled is estimated at 600 tons to begin with. 
 The records of the Department of Street Cleaning show that 
 the average number of tons per year handled during the five 
 years beginning with 1900 was 158,845, and this estimate the 
 successful bidder took into consideration when submitting his 
 proposal. 
 
 The garbage collected in the Borough of Brooklyn is finally 
 disposed of under a five years' contract, whidi began on Sep- 
 tember 1, 1902. It was then estimated that about 300 tons of 
 material would be handled daily. The total compensation for 
 the work is $47,990 per annum. 
 
 The maximum daily output of garbage in the Borough of 
 the Bronx was estimated at no tons when the contract for 
 final disposition was made. By the terms of the contract the 
 city agreed to pay the successful bidder the following yearly 
 sums, work beginning on December 1, 1903: First year, $15,- 
 000; second, $16,000; third, $18,000; fourth, $21,000; and fifth, 
 $25,000. 
 
 THE PRESENT ORGANIZATION OF THE D. S. C. AND THE 
 
 WORKING FORCE. 
 
 For the purpose of street sweeping and the collection of 
 ashes, garbage and refuse the three boroughs controlled by 
 the Department of Street Cleaning are divided into twenty- 
 one districts, thirteen of which are in the Boroughs of Man- 
 hattan and the Bronx and eight in the Borough of Brooklyn. 
 Each district is under the supervision of a district superin- 
 tendent and is subdivided into sections, a section foreman and 
 several assistants supervising the work of the cartmen and 
 sweepers in each section. The section foremen report to the 
 district superintendents, who in turn are responsible to a gen- 
 eral superintendent and an assistant general superintendent, 
 the two latter officers coming under the immediate direction 
 of the deputy commissioner. The Commissioner of Street 
 Cleaning is responsible for the work of the department in its 
 entirety. 
 
 53 
 
The enforcement of the law relating to the encumbering of 
 the streets by unused vehicles, boxes, bales and other movable 
 property is committed to various men in each of the depart- 
 ment's districts, the respective district superintendents being 
 amenable to the commissioner for the proper enforcement of 
 the law. 
 
 The bureau of final disposition receives all material col- 
 lected by the carts of the department and 'by permit carts, 
 with the exception of garbage, which is received and finally 
 disposed of by contractors. The dumping boards along the 
 water front are controlled by dump inspectors who are re- 
 sponsible for the proper separation of material and the loading 
 and trimming of the scows. Assistant dump inspectors keep 
 a tally of the number of cartloads of material delivered to the 
 dumps, daily reports 'being sent in to the department. Dump 
 inspectors are also assigned to the inland receiving stations in 
 Brooklyn. The bureau of final disposition is directed by a 
 superintendent and an assistant superintendent, and from these 
 two officers the dump inspectors, their assistants, the board- 
 men, scowmen, deckhands, and other employees connected with 
 the department's fleet of scows and steam dumpers, receive 
 their orders. 
 
 The mechanical bureau of the department is in charge of a 
 master mechanic and employs more than 200 men. This force 
 repairs the equipment and keeps the various stables, section 
 stables and dumping 'boards in proper condition. All the 
 smaller repairs to the scows and steam dumpers are made by 
 the bureau's mechanics. 
 
 The uniform force of the Department of Street Cleaning on 
 December 31, 1905, consisted of 5,148 men, divided as follows: 
 
 1 General Superintendent. 
 
 1 Assistant General Superintendent. 
 
 1 Superintendent of Stables. 
 
 1 Superintendent of Final Disposition. 
 
 1 Assistant Superintendent of Final Disposition. 
 20 District Superintendents. 
 96 Section Foremen. 
 
 189 Acting Assistants to Section Foremen. 
 18 Stable Foremen. 
 18 Assistant Stable Foremen. 
 37 Acting Assistants to Stable Foremen. 
 42 Dump Inspectors. 
 
 22 Assistant Dump Inspectors. 
 
 23 Boardmen. 
 41 Scowmen. 
 
 1 Master. 
 1 Mate. 
 
 34 
 
4 Engineers. 
 
 5 Firemen. 
 12 Deckhands. 
 
 8o Section Station Keepers. 
 
 8 Incumbrance Yardmen. 
 
 2,434 Sweepers. 
 
 1,375 Drivers. 
 
 305 Drivers Detailed. 
 
 193 Hostlers. 
 
 1 Master Mechanic, 
 
 in Mechanics. 
 
 101 Mechanic's Helpers. 
 
 6 Automobile Enginemen. 
 
 The plant of the department includes the following: 
 1,555 Carts. 
 1,971 Horses. 
 100 Machine Sweepers. 
 42 Scow r s. 
 3 Steam Dumpers. 
 
 An effort is made to maintain among the members of the 
 uniformed force a discipline approaching as near as circum- 
 stances will permit that Which obtains in the army, but the 
 men are only under restraint during working hours. Fines are 
 imposed for violations of the rules of the department as formu- 
 lated by the commissioner, and he has the power of dismissal 
 in cases where grave offenses have been committed. 
 
 Although each district performs its work independently of 
 the others, the same general method of street cleaning is car- 
 ried forward in all the districts. The sweepers clean the 
 streets and pile the material near the curb or place it in cans. 
 In muddy weather they are supposed to keep the crossings 
 clear. The cartmen have specific routes which they follow 
 daily in collecting household wastes, ashes, rubbish, garbage 
 and street sweepings. This material is hauled to the dumps 
 on the water front, or inland, as the case may be. 
 
 STREET CLEANING IN OTHER CITIES. 
 
 Methods of street cleaning vary in different cities and it is not pos- 
 sible to make a fair comparison of the system of any one city in the 
 United States with that of New York. At the same time, it is interest- 
 ing to review briefly the street cleaning methods in some of the more 
 important municipalities. The information presented here has been 
 obtained from official reports and by means of inquiries made by the 
 Bureau of City Betterment. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 In Philadelphia the work is done entirely by contract, the price foi 
 the current year being $844,272. About 55 per cent, of this amount 
 
 35 
 
will, it is estimated, be consumed in the removal of ashes and house- 
 hold waste from over 350,000 buildings once a week, as the contract 
 requires. The approximate balance of $380,000 pays for the cleaning 
 of more than 1,000 miles of paved streets, most of them daily, and the 
 remainder either twice or three times each week, as well as the clean- 
 ing of several thousand alleys and upwards of 22,000 inlets weekly or 
 more often, if necessary. The contract also provides that the hand 
 cleaning of asphalt streets shall be supplemented by machine sweeping 
 and sprinkling once a week. As in the case of New York the City of 
 Philadelphia is divided into cleaning districts, the total number being 
 eleven. Detailed reports of the work are required by the Bureau of 
 Street Cleaning every day, and the contract permits the imposition of 
 fines of varying amounts upon the contractor for all violations of the 
 specifications. 
 
 WASHINGTON. 
 
 In the City of Washington, D. C, during the fiscal year which ended 
 June 30. 1905. the total area of streets cleaned by hand was 430,216,853 
 square yards; the sweepings removed amounted to 34.312 cubic yards. 
 The total cost of this work was $80,108.24 or 0.1862 cents per thousand 
 square yards. The minimum number of laborers employed on the 
 work was 161; the maximum number 211; the days on which the work 
 was performed numbered 253^. 
 
 In the same year the total area of streets cleaned by machine sweep- 
 ers was 32^,337-975 square yards. The cubic yards of sweepings removed 
 amounted to 61,953 or 20,651 loads. This work is performed under 
 contract at the rate of 16 13-16 cents per thousand square yards, the 
 total cost for the year 1905 being $54,361.18. The contract which ex- 
 pires June 30, 1906, provides also for hose flushing at the same rate, 
 but no work of this character has been performed since the summer of 
 190J. when it was discontinued pending investigation by the engineer 
 department as to possible injury to the asphalt surfacing. The report 
 of that departmeht was unfavorable and hose flushing has not been 
 resumed. 
 
 The cost per cubic yard of sweepings removed in 1905 was 80 cents 
 as against 93 cents in 1904. 
 
 Alley cleaning was performed under contract in 1905 at a cost of 
 $11,631.30. The total area cleaned amounted to 33,232,290 square 
 yards; the cubic yards of sweepings removed numbered 14,260 or 7.130 
 loads. Work was performed on 221 days, the cost per cubic yard of 
 sweepings removed being 82 cents in 1905 as against 92 cents in 1904. 
 
 The total area of unimproved streets cleaned under contract was 
 22,681.544 square yards; the cubic yards of dirt removed were 18,344. 
 The total cost of this work was $15,892.99. The cost per cubic yard 
 of dirt removed was 87 cents in 1905 as against 91 cents in 1904. Work 
 ■was performed on 222 1-10 days. 
 
 36 
 
The collection and disposal of garbage, ashes and refuse in Wash- 
 ington is performed under contract. 
 
 ST. PAUL. 
 
 According to the report of the Commissioner of Public Works of 
 the City of St. Paul, twenty-seven miles of streets in that city, with a 
 total area of 650,100 square yards, were swept at the beginning of 1904. 
 There were employed on the work one foreman, five teams, and 
 eighty-six men, at a cost of $157.60 per day. The average cost per 
 mile of streets cleaned was $5.84, or 21^4 cents per 1,000 square yards 
 per day. At the close -of the season the work had increased to 27M 
 miles, or 664,833 square yards, and the force had been increased to one 
 foreman, six teams and ninety-one men, at a total cost of $169.10 per 
 day, the rate per mile and per thousand square yards being practically 
 the same. 
 
 The total amount expended for labor was $26,079.10 and for brooms 
 and other appliances, $405.25. The streets swept were divided into 
 districts, each man being required to attend to his own district, and 
 provide himself with a uniform of white duck. This method of clean- 
 ing, the report says, has been satisfactory. 
 
 About fifteen miles of streets were swept by machine. These streets 
 were not swept ever}- night, but in accordance with the amount of 
 traffic and their condition, ranging from one to four times per week. 
 The sweeping crew generally covered five to six miles of streets in a 
 night's work. The cost of the crew was about $58 per night, and the 
 cost per thousand square yards was about 54 cents. 
 
 The report speaks of the practice of flushing paved streets in the 
 business districts at night, in order to remove the fine dust that cannot 
 be gathered up by the hand sweeping. The amount of street covered 
 by a crew in 1904 was generally a little less than two miles per night, 
 or about 40.000 square yards. The cost of the crew was $17.15 per 
 night, and the average cost was $8.75 per mile or 43^ cents per thou- 
 sand square yards. 
 
 The removal of garbage in St. Paul is a work performed under the 
 supervision of the Commissioner of Health. The superintendent of 
 garbage collection also removes and disposes of rubbish and dead 
 animals. 
 
 Animal and vegetable matter is kept separate from rubbish and is 
 collected in galvanized iron buckets. Most of the garbage is hauled 
 to the city limits where it is transferred to farmers who haul it many 
 miles into the country for feeding and fertilizing purposes, and pay 
 $85 per year for one load a week. The amount received from this 
 source for the year 1904 was $1,393.25. During 'that year 7,687 loads of 
 garbage were removed by farmers who are licensed by the superin- 
 tendent of garbage collection. The city has a ready sale for all gar- 
 bage that can be conveniently hauled to the transfer points. 
 
 37 
 
ST. LOUIS. 
 
 Street cleaning in St. Louis is performed by the municipal govern 
 ment, which hires equipment and laborers by the day at the following 
 prices: Flushing and broom sweeping machines, $6; dirt wagons, $4.50; 
 laborers, $1.50; inspectors, $3. 
 
 The number of miles of streets under the cleaning process is 206.35. 
 One man is given about five city blocks to clean, the average length of 
 each block being 300 feet, and the cost of labor $1.50 per day. Assum- 
 ing that the roadway is thirty-six feet wide, five and one-quarter great 
 squares are cleaned per day at a cost of 28 cents per great square. 
 Flushing machines are generally used on all pavements except brick, 
 where machine sweepers are used, except when the pavements are very 
 dirty. The average cost of flushing a mile of street is $19 and the aver- 
 age cost per mile for machine sweeping is $8.50. 
 
 The existing system of street cleaning is considered satisfactory by 
 the St. Louis authorities, who assert that the plan they pursue of 
 sprinkling the paved streets from one to four times a day greatly aids 
 the cleaning process. The cost of sprinkling is charged as a special 
 tax against the property fronting the street sprinkled, the average rate 
 for the year amounting to about four cents per front foot. 
 
 ROCHESTER. 
 
 In the City of Rochester about seventy streets or parts of streets are 
 cleaned, the surface material being either asphalt, asphalt block, or 
 brick. The average cost of all sweeping and cleaning was $733.01 per 
 mile in 1904, or $43.22 per thousand square yards. The average width 
 of street is twenty-eight feet. 
 
 The cost of cleaning asphalt streets by day labor was $37.16 per 
 thousand square yards for the season, or an average of $600.21 per 
 mile of street cleaned. These streets were cleaned an average of 106 
 times during the season. 
 
 The brick streets cost about $24.23 per thousand square yards, or an 
 average of $383.80 per mile, and were cleaned an average of 47 times 
 during the season. 
 
 BOSTON. 
 
 The methods pursued by the Street Cleaning Division in Boston may 
 be stated briefly. The water carts begin the day's work by sprinkling 
 the route to be covered by the sweeping machines, which follow in due 
 time. The machines sweep toward the gutters, and a force of hand 
 sweepers follow and sweep the dirt up into piles, the material being 
 removed to the dumps by carts. 
 
 When the weather permits, the sweeping is done at night. An aux- 
 iliary force, familiarly called the push-cart force, follows up the work 
 of the night detail and covers virtually the same territory cleaned by 
 
 38 
 
the sweeping machines. This force uses a small push cart, from the 
 frame of which a barrel or bag is suspended. It is a popular feature of 
 the work and is being extended yearly. About $400,000 was expended 
 in Boston during the year 1903 for street cleaning and snow removal. 
 The cost per load of cleaning the streets and removing the material to 
 the dumps ranged from 73 cents to $2.17, according to the nature of 
 the district. The total number of cartloads removed was 106,261 and 
 the number of barrel and bag loads 108,588. 
 
 CLEVELAND. 
 
 During the year 1904 the Department of Street Cleaning of the City 
 of Cleveland spent $147,785.41. About 11,694 squares were cleaned 
 with flushers at a cost of 62^4 cents per square of 10,000 square feet; 
 46,825 squares with machine sweepers at $1.11 2-10 per square; 231,000 
 squares by "white wings" (men) at 98.2 cents per square; and 127,000 
 squares by the alley gang at a cost of 99.6 cents per square. The de- 
 partment hauled 43,646 loads of street sweepings and 8,022 loads of 
 snow. 
 
 CHICAGO. 
 
 The latest available report of the Chicago Bureau of Streets is for 
 the year 1904, when the disbursements for street and alley cleaning 
 amounted to $274,531.70; for the removal of garbage, $640,602.50; and 
 for snow removal, $74,284.27. Of the total cost of street and alley 
 cleaning, $48,030.61 was charged to the street railway companies for 
 cleaning their respective rights of way. The total mileage of streets 
 and alleys cleaned during the year is placed at 17,544. This necessi- 
 tated the removal of 128,537 loads of street sweepings, the cutting of 
 i>3 2 3>3&5 lineal feet of weeds, and the opening and cleaning of 354,125 
 inlets to catch-basins. The number of loads of snow removed was 
 46,676. 
 
 As an object lesson to the city officials, a number of public-spirited 
 Chicagoans organized the Citizens' Street Cleaning Bureau, which 
 swept and cleaned a limited area in the down-town section during the 
 nine months ending February 28, 1905. The work was supervised by 
 Richard T. Fox, an experienced street cleaning chief. The area cleaned 
 at the beginning was gradually extended until it reached a total of 
 123,000 square yards. On weekdays the streets were cleaned an aver- 
 age of two and a half times, with one thorough sweeping on Sundays 
 and holidays. At first the alleys were swept two or three times per 
 week, but to.ward the end of the period they were cleaned every night 
 except Sunday. 
 
 The work of cleaning was done entirely by hand, which is generally 
 conceded to be a more thorough and effective method than machine 
 sweeping, especially in the case of uneven pavements. It is stated in 
 the report of the Chicago experiment that an "advantage of the hand 
 broom is that by sweeping from the center of the street, either way, to 
 the curb the furrows between the paving blocks can be thoroughly 
 
 39 
 
cleaned. This is an impossibility for a machine, as it cannot be op- 
 erated except with the length of the street." 
 
 When the bureau first started work, with an inexperienced force of 
 men, the cost per thousand square yards of paving swept two and a 
 half times daily was $2.40, which sum was cut in half before the experi- 
 ment ended. Similarly, the cost of the removal of sweepings was re- 
 duced from one dollar to fifty cents per cubic yard. 
 
 The report contains some interesting observations with regard to 
 the "preventable dirt and litter appearing, day after day, on the street 
 surfaces, through carelessness and negligence, and as a result of bad 
 paving." One man's sole duty was to collect paper, fruit skins, straw, 
 sidewalk sweepings, etc., from the alleys, and the time consumed by 
 the whole body of sweepers in gathering such litter from the streets, 
 amounted practically to the entire time of three men. The whole 
 amount expended on this item was $180 per month, exclusive of cart- 
 age. It was difficult to estimate the cost imposed upon the bureau by 
 the spilling of sand, cellar dirt, and similar materials from overloaded 
 or loosely jointed wagon boxes. At two individual points, however,, 
 two additional men were employed because of dirt made by wagons 
 going to and from the dumps, which involved an expense of $90 a 
 month. Other sources of litter were found to be the practice of lifting 
 ashes from beneath the sidewalks to the streets; the feeding of horses 
 on the principal thoroughfares; improperly controlled building opera- 
 tions, and poor pavements. 
 
 Records kept by the bureau indicate that with the same traffic a 
 given area of granite block pavement in Chicago produces an average 
 of 40 per cent, more dirt than an equal area of asphalt. This fact is 
 accounted for in the report as follows: 
 
 "Sixty per cent, of the paving, or practically all but the asphalt, in 
 
 our streets is laid on permeable foundations earth or sand. 
 
 The spaces between the stones were originally filled with gravel and 
 cement, or tar, but repeated disturbances of the paving by public utility 
 companies, and others, and the constant pounding of heavy traffic has 
 loosened much of this filling and, as such, it has disappeared, allowing 
 the subsoil to work up through the joints. In dry weather this dirt is 
 converted to dust; in wet weather it is mud." 
 
 BUFFALO. 
 
 For street cleaning purposes the City of Buffalo is divided into dis- 
 tricts, the work being done under a five-year contract. Following are 
 the contract prices for sweeping and cleaning each great square of 
 10,000 square feet: 
 
 Up to and including 300,000 great squares at 30 cents. 
 
 Up to and including 325,000 " at 2g l / 2 
 
 Up to and including 350,000 " at 29 
 
 Up to and including 375,000 " at 27^ 
 
 Up to and including 400,000 " at 27 
 
 Up to and including 425,000 " at 26^2 
 
 40 
 
Any great squares over and above 425,000 are cleaned at the rate of 
 25 cents. 
 
 For collecting and disposing of the street sweepings twice each day 
 $22 per day is paid, while the price for flushing streets is 60 cents per 
 great square. Labor and teams for the removal of snow and ice are 
 furnished at a price per cubic yard of 25 cents. 
 
 Garbage, ashes and refuse are also collected and disposed of by con- 
 tract. For the ten months ending July 1, 1904, the cost of the work 
 amounted to $165,385.53. The total yards of ashes and refuse handled 
 were 323,513.17, and the tons of garbage numbered 16,928.39. 
 
 In his report for the year 1905 the Commissioner of Street Cleaning 
 for the City of Baltimore states that the problem of street cleaning 
 was complicated there during last year because of the large amount of 
 new pavement laid and the extensive building operations resulting 
 from the recent conflagration. He called attention to the effect of 
 carelessness on the part of the public on the condition of streets as 
 follows : 
 
 "How to stop the littering of the streets by thoughtless and careless 
 people is a problem that will have to be solved before we can ever 
 hope to have a neat and clean city, and it seems to the writer (the 
 commissioner) that the prevention of dirt in our streets caused by 
 careless persons is as important as the cleaning of dirt that cannot be 
 avoided. And this is entirely a matter of education. Unfortunately, 
 beyond the memory of the oldest inhabitant the littering of the streets 
 has been done thoughtlessly and without restraint; it may be a fruit 
 paring, the fragments of a letter, an old newspaper thrown into a street 
 just cleaned, carelessly and thoughtlessly, without an idea of wrong- 
 doing; storekeepers allowing their stores to be swept into the street 
 without protest from any one; rubbish of all kinds dumped into our 
 streets and alleys, almost at will, . . . It is high time that public 
 opinion in this regard should be rising above the old village ideas, and 
 that these offenders against order and cleanliness should be made by 
 the Police Department, backed by public opinion, to obey the law and 
 assist us in having a city clean and beautiful. . . ." 
 
 BALTIMORE. 
 
 SUMMARY OF 1905. 
 
 Total number of cubic yards of garbage collected and re- 
 moved 
 
 158,621 
 
 Total number of cubic yards of ashes and refuse collected 
 and removed 
 
 492,633 
 
 Total number of cubic yards of street dirt, sand, snow and 
 ice collected and removed 
 
 535,751 
 
 Total number of cubic yards removed from sewers and in- 
 lets 
 
 18,72c 
 
 Total number of cubic yards of all kinds removed. . 
 
 1,205,725 
 
 41 
 
Total amount paid for the removal of ashes, garbage, etc., $198,800.00 
 Total amount paid for removal of street dirt, snow, ice, etc., 193,190.26 
 Total amount paid for sweeping and sprinkling streets by 
 
 machine 28,096.12 
 
 Total amount paid for tools and repairs 3,325.50 
 
 Total amount paid for incidental expenses 1,100.00 
 
 Total amount paid for. salaries 16,996.64 
 
 Total amount paid for cleaning sewers and inlets, includ- 
 ing tools '. 18,970.23 
 
 Total amount paid for sprinkling roads 1,000.00 
 
 Total amount paid for street dirt removed by scows 5,000.00 
 
 Total amount paid for cleaning burnt district 21,826.64 
 
 Total amount paid for 1905.. $488,305.39 
 
 Total amount received for sale of refuse $1,338.60 
 
 Total number of street cars employed, 1905 113 
 
 Total number of sweepers and scrapers 177 
 
 Total number of sewer men 17 
 
 Total 307 
 
 Cost of collection and removal 1905, garbage and ashes, per 
 
 load ■ $0.68 
 
 Cost of carting, per cubic yard 568 
 
 Cost of snow and ice removal, per cubic yard .218 
 
 Total area swept, 1905, 3,477,400,000 square feet, of which 1,735,945 
 477, or 50 per cent., were swept by machine. 
 
 STREET CLEANING IN DRESDEN, GERMANY. 
 
 In the City of Dresden, citizens are forbidden to litter the streets, 
 householders depositing rubbish, paper, etc., in the streets before their 
 houses are required to remove it immediately. On the failure of the 
 householder to comply with this ordinance, the litter is removed by 
 the department of street cleaning and the cost of such removal col- 
 lected from the offender. 
 
 Dresden is one of the "tidiest" cities in the world. Its population 
 is approximately 400,000. All of the streets are cleaned by the city. 
 The total area now cleaned approximates 41,000,000 square meters. 
 The total cost for 1905 was 1,139,589 marks. This sum covered the 
 •cost of cleaning, carting of sweepings, sprinkling and snow removal. 
 
 The following description of the methods of the department is taken 
 from the report of the director of street cleaning for 1902, dated Sep- 
 tember, 1903. This period was before the date of the extension of the 
 corporate limits of the City of Dresden. The director stated, however, 
 in a letter dated March 7, 1906, that the cost of cleaning the enlarged 
 area is only a proportional increase over the cost of cleaning the street 
 area in 1902. 
 
 42 
 
The following is an abstract of the report: 
 
 The city cleans foot and driveways and carts away sweepings. It 
 removes snow and ice when necessary, from footpaths and streets. 
 Snow is not removed before thawing unless it is of sufficient depth to 
 block traffic. 
 
 Property owners are required to strew ashes or otlier rough sub- 
 stance upon snow or ice covered sidewalks. They are also required 
 to remove from sidewalks, otherwise free from snow and ice, all snow 
 that may fall from the roofs, or ice that may form from the eaves 
 dripping. 
 
 Property owners are required to pay a special tax of two marks per 
 square meter for the cleaning of a street during the first year after 
 the laying of the pavement. On subsequent years the tax is reduced 
 to ten pfennig per square meter. This tax is levied on the basis of the 
 frontage of the lots. 
 
 Railway companies are required to clean the pavement between their 
 rails. 
 
 In 1902 the total area cleaned was 3,015,886 square meters. 
 
 The average daily cleaning for the year was 2,983,908 square meters. 
 This total was divided as follows: 
 
 Stone (granite) pavement 2,122,818 square meters 
 
 Asphalt 421,217 " " 
 
 Macadam 438,873 " " 
 
 All this surface was cleaned at least once each day, the larger part 
 being cleaned several times daily. 
 
 The total paved area (3,015,886 square meters, about one-fifth area 
 New York pavement) was divided as follows: 
 
 Stone (granite) pavement 2,150,863 square meters 
 
 Asphalt 425,741 " " 
 
 Macadam 439,282 " " 
 
 2,215,845 square meters were cleaned more than once a day. 
 
 FORCE. 
 
 Average number of men, 432; 300, granite; 95, asphalt; 31, Macadam; 
 6, comfort stations. 
 
 The average distance covered by one sweeper was 7,000 square 
 meters. 
 
 The average distance covered on various pavements was 
 
 Granite (machines used in addition) . . 7,200 square meters 
 
 Asphalt (machines used only slightly) 4,500 
 
 Macadam 14,200 " " 
 
 For snow removal, additional men are hired when needed. The 
 maximum number of such men employed was 1,627. 
 
 43 
 
Wages, regular force 
 extra men . . 
 
 500,760.61 marks 
 42,951.16 
 
 543,911.78 marks 
 
 The regular force consists of a foreman, detailed sweepers, sweep- 
 •ers. 
 
 Foremen and detailed sweepers are required to have had three years' 
 experience as sweepers. Each foreman has charge of from six to ten 
 sweepers and is paid as follows: 
 
 3- 6th year of service. 3.75 marks per diem. 
 7- 9th- " "4 " " " 
 
 io-i2th " " 4.25 " " " 
 
 Over 12 years of service, 4.50 " " " 
 
 Detailed sweepers (follow up gangs and sweep on principal streets). 
 
 4- 6th year of service, 3.20 marks per diem. 
 7- 9th " " 3.40 
 
 io-i2th " " 3.60 
 
 Sweepers (paid by the hour). 
 
 1st year 28 marks 
 
 2nd and 3rd years 29 marks 
 
 4th year and over 30 marks 
 
 On Sundays and holidays all sweeping is done during 4 or 5 early 
 morning hours. 
 
 Once in 8 weeks each sweeper is given a holiday or Sunday without 
 loss of pay. 
 
 Uniforms consisting of blue blouse, shirt and cap are worn by all 
 employees of the department. These uniforms are supplied and kept 
 in repair by the department, being renewed three times a year at an 
 average cost per man of 28.72 marks. 
 
 A day's work consists of ten hours. Occasionally the detailed 
 .sweepers are required to work one or two hours longer in the busy 
 streets. Xo sweeper is forced to work overtime, all such work being 
 voluntary and additionally compensated. 
 
 In addition 13 men were employed on repairs. 
 3 tailors on uniforms. 
 7 janitors at district stations. 
 
 Total employees, December 31, 1902. 471 men, five of whom had 
 been over 25 years in the service, and 71 over 10 years. 
 
 74 were over 50 years of age, one being over 70. 
 
 All the employees are insured in the workingmen's insurance, which 
 .according to law, is partly paid by the city. 
 
 44 
 
METHOD OF WORK. 
 
 The methods of cleaning the streets varies with the seasons. The 
 city is divided into nine districts. 
 
 Ordinarily, the streets receive one thorough and one supplementary 
 cleaning each day. The busy streets receive their first cleaning during 
 the first five hours in the morning and the remainder during the last 
 five hours. 
 
 Stone (granite) pavements are swept from — 
 
 4 A.M.— 3:30 P.M., April-Sept. 
 
 5 A. M. — 4:30 P. M., Oct.-March. 
 
 Asphalt (where traffic is heavy) 4 A. M. — 3:30 P. M. throughout the 
 year. 
 
 The second or supplementary cleaning is performed by the detailed 
 sweepers who work in winter between the hours of 6 A. M. and 6 
 P. M.; in summer, between 7 A. M. and 7 P. M. 
 
 On Sundays and holidays throughout the year all cleaning is done 
 from 3 A. M. to 8:30 A. M. 
 
 The sweeping is done by gangs of 6 to 10 men under a foreman, who 
 follow an established route, worked out with the character and the 
 amount of traffic taken into consideration. There are three methods 
 employed: a, sweeping machines; b, flushing; c, hand sweeping. 
 
 Sweeping machines are used on the streets with good and fairly 
 even stone paving. They have been found cheaper, swifter and more 
 efficient than hand sweeping on this character of pavement. Occa- 
 sionally, machines are used on asphalt streets, which lie within the 
 circuit covered by the machine in sweeping the stone pavement. 
 
 For machine sweeping purposes Dresden was in 1902, divided into 
 34 routes, containing from 40,000 to 50,000 square meters of pavement 
 (including footpaths). The more used streets are cleaned first in the 
 morning. The average area cleaned by a machine is 26,000 square 
 meters. 
 
 The foreman supervising the work of the machine sweepers has 6 to 
 10 men brush up the dirt cast by the machines into the gutters. The 
 machines are provided with a sprinkling attachment. 
 
 FLUSHING (LIMITED TO ASPHALT). 
 
 The asphalt streets are divided into 13 routes, each containing 33,500 
 square meters of asphalt surface. The cleaning is done by a 
 gang of from 4 to 7 men under a foreman. First, the coarse dirt is 
 removed with brooms, then the surface is wetted and scraped with 
 rubber squeeges. The coarse dirt is removed in handcarts and the 
 slime worked into the sewers. Each circuit is based on the distance 
 coverable by a horse in 5 hours. 
 
 45 
 
In less frequented streets the flushing is done only on alternate days, 
 being swept with brooms on every other day. The busy streets are 
 flushed every day when the temperature is above the freezing point. 
 When heavy rains occur the first sweeping and flushing are omitted, 
 no cleaning being done except by the detailed sweepers who usually 
 follow up the gangs. 
 
 All streets whose surfaces are rough or uneven are, necessarily, 
 cleaned by hand. 
 
 IN WINTER. 
 
 Before the beginning of winter, 20 different centers are established 
 at which all tools needed for snow removal are taken in good season. 
 
 For snow removal purposes the city is again divided into districts. 
 To each district a foreman and 2 regular sweepers are detailed with as 
 many extra men as the character of the snowfall demands. 
 
 Order of snow removal: 
 
 1st. Walks and crossings cleaned. 
 2nd. Driveways as traffic requires. 
 
 The snow is loaded by hand. In 1902 five snowplows were used for 
 opening up avenues for traffic. 
 
 EQUIPMENT. 
 
 45 sweeping machines. 
 19 flushing machines. 
 
 84 hand water carts (sprinkling of streets before and during sweep- 
 ing)- 
 
 169 handcarts. 
 
 On a fairly good street, a sweeping machine can clean thoroughly 
 5,500 square meters per hour. 
 
 During the year 3 squeeges were used to every 1,000 square meters 
 of asphalt surface cleaned. 
 
 68,370 rush brooms. 
 
 2,860 straw brooms. 
 
 477 special brooms. 
 
 The total expenditure for supplies in 1902 was 118,428 marks. 
 
 55,550 pounds of salt were used to melt snow. 
 
 46 
 
CARTING. 
 
 Sweepings are carted away over the less used streets to outlying 
 points where they are reloaded upon the carts of contractors. For 
 an average daily use of from 20 to 30 carts there was an expenditure 
 for carting, in 1902, of 51,042 marks. The carting of sweepings is 
 paid for in a lump sum on the contract. 
 
 Snow carting, however, is paid for by the cartload. The rates per 
 cartload vary according to the length of haul, i. e., for 500 meters, 1 
 mark; for 500 to 2,500 meters, 2 marks. 
 
 Strict supervision is kept by the department over the number of 
 loads hauled by the contractor. Department sweepers supervise the 
 loading and unloading of the carts. After loading, the driver receives 
 two identically numbered tickets, a triplicate being kept by the in- 
 spector. Upon this triplicate the inspector must write the number of 
 cart to which the ticket and the duplicate were given. The color of 
 the ticket indicates the distance of the loading point from the nearest 
 dump. The cartmen, on dumping, surrender one of the tickets to the 
 dump inspector, dropping it into a locked box. The other he gives to 
 the contractor. On the day following the amount due the contractor 
 is promptly calculated. 
 
 A two horse team must remove a load of not less than three cubic 
 meters. 
 
 The snow is clumped into the larger sewers and into the River Elbe. 
 
 In 1902 there was 61,455 cubic meters of snow carted. Of this total, 
 49,161 cubic meters were carted by two horse teams. 
 
 12,294 cubic meters were taken away in hand carts. 
 
 Of the total removed, 31,269 cubic meters was dumped into the 
 sewers, 17,892 cubic meters being carted to the river. On days of little 
 snowfall and when the snow was packed teams were hired by the day 
 and the payment of removal by the cartload dispensed with. 
 
 SPRINKLING. 
 
 The Department of Street Cleaning also sprinkles the streets to lay 
 the dust. Teams and drivers are furnished by a contractor and the 
 work is inspected by detailed sweepers who also fill the carts. Sprink- 
 ling carts are used as ordered only. The contractor is given two 
 hours' notice, which is cancelled if a rain storm arises. In the months 
 of March, October and November, sprinkling is done between 10 A. M. 
 and 3 P. M.; in the months of April and September, between 7 and 12 
 A. M. and 1 and 6 P. M.; in June, July and August, from 6 to 11 A. M. 
 and 1 to 6 P. M. The contractors are paid by the day. Streets and 
 footpaths are sprinkled from one to four times a day. 
 
 47 
 
Taxpayers of New York 
 
 SIGNIFICANT STEPS 
 
 Reseaicb (then The Bureau of City 
 Betterment). A dispassionate state- 
 ment in pamphlet form of facts call- 
 
 nnfi lack of system in the office of the 
 President of the Borough of Manbat- 
 
 President Ahearn asked the Mayc 
 for "thorough investigation of tb 
 affairs" of his office by the Commii 
 
 vs. Abearn's Administration 
 
 sioners of Accounts. 
 December 3, 1906. 
 
 Mayor McCltllan directed the Com- 
 missioners of Accounts to make "a 
 careful and exhaustive examination 
 of the affairs of President Ahearn's 
 
 December 8, 1906. 
 
 John Purroy Mitchel appointed Spe- 
 cial Assistant Corporation Counsel to 
 
 strati 
 
 February I, 1907. 
 
 Results of its a 
 
 ;d in trie hands of Corpora- 
 sel by Bureau of Municipal 
 
 by Commissioners of Accounts. 
 April 8, 1907. 
 
 Public bearings begun by Commis- 
 sioners of Accounts, conducted by the 
 Special Assistant Corporation Counsel 
 and the Director of the Bureau. 
 April 22, 1907. 
 
 Mr. Mitchel appointed Commis- 
 sioner of Accounts. 
 Hay 18, 1907. 
 
 President Ahearn removed William 
 
 isident Ah. 
 20, 1907. 
 
 resign as Commis 
 Works he used thes 
 been talking with so 
 
 who don't belong to the Organization, 
 who the public will take up and the 
 newspapers make a gieat time over 
 and say, ■ Ahearn is doing the proper 
 thing ;' and after a little while it will 
 quiet down and you can come back 
 
 Hay 22, 1907. 
 
 William H. Walker, Superintende 
 of Public Buildings and Offices, i 
 moved by President Ahearn in cons 
 
 May 3 I, 1907. 
 
 Chief Engit 
 Highways res 
 Mr. Ahearn. 
 July 16, 1907. 
 
 listed Their n 
 
 Bureau of 
 
 ind < 
 
 the inefficien 
 upti, 
 
 Clos, 
 
 ord 
 
 pected in greater or less degre< 
 department of the City G 
 when, as in the office of the President 
 of the Borough of Manhattan, there is 
 an unscientific distribution of Govern- 
 
 trolling and informing system of 
 accounts and periodic reports." 
 
 July 18, 1907. 
 
 Mayor McClellan transmitted report 
 of Commi-sionersof Accounts to Gov- 
 ernor Hughes. 
 
 July 21, 1907. 
 
 New York World published a state- 
 
 of Manhattan Borongn 
 
 SIGNIFICANT RESULTS 
 
 If nr Ahearn is Removed the Cities 
 of New York State Will Have Dis- 
 covered a Direct and Effective Way of 
 Correcting Administrative Abuses and 
 of Promoting Administrative Effi- 
 ciency. 
 
 The ' ' recall " provided in the new Des 
 Moines charter necessitates, (t) petition 
 by 25 per cent, of the voters, and (2) a 
 special election. If Mr. Ahearn is re- 
 moved for incompetence, it will be 
 
 or organization possessing proof of in- 
 
 npti 
 
 be 
 
 taken on the basis of such information 
 without the delay required to secure 
 petition by 25 per cent of the voters and 
 a majority vote at a special election. 
 A premium will thus be placed upon 
 official conduct that, when recorded and 
 
 If nr. Ahearn is Not Removed, The 
 Ahearn Trial Will Still Have Con- 
 ferred a Three-Fold Benefit. 
 
 (1) Mr. Ahearn's lax methods have in 
 large measure been removed and are 
 absolutely discredited in the public 
 mind. As shown in the above-men- 
 
 e; Vonlmfcsioner "of^PuWic 
 1 liompsi'D joits politicians by 
 out methods of giatt. saving 
 llker's old 
 
 3ths- 
 
 last 
 
 July 15, 1907. 
 
 City Club formally preferred charges 
 against President Ahearn, based upon 
 
 September 10, 1907 
 
 Governor Hughes began hearings 
 
 October ?3-24, 1907. 
 
 had appointed his assistants for politi- 
 cal reasons; that he employed no 
 means of testirg their efficiency or in- 
 efficiency ; that he trusted his appoint- 
 ees, whose training fitted them quite 
 as well for their duties as had his 
 training fitted him for the Borough 
 
 November 12, 1907. 
 
 Final briefs filed with Governor 
 Hughes bv Messrs. Spenser &• Strong. 
 Counsel for City Club, and Mr. Little 
 ton. Counsel for Mr. Ahearn. 
 
 and 
 
 . The 
 need n 
 
 inhibit anti-public impulses and to ac- 
 complish important administrative re- 
 forms if it will only insure records, 
 accounts and reports that promptly dis- 
 
 nesty. and if, In addition, the public 
 provides itself with eyes to read and 
 interpret these records, accounts and re- 
 
 (2) It has led to the reorganization of 
 the office of Commissioner of Accounts. 
 "The most effective (potentially)agency 
 provided by the charter of Greater New 
 York for producing information and for 
 
 (3) HI 
 
 ^veredthe responsibility 
 and authority of the Mayor, who. through 
 the Commissioners of Accounts, has 
 
 Bureau of Municipal Research, No. 2g. — Nov. 12, igoj. 
 
Need for Municipal Research: Boston. 
 
 THE SOCIAL SETTLER. 
 
 In an address before the American Statis- 
 tical \.;,, C tat[. m in tin* city last week, Mr. 
 William H. Allen, secretary of the Bureau 
 of Municipal Research of New York City, 
 
 encouraging word on the subject of munic- 
 
 Setiler\ _ea 
 regarding t 
 
 municipal account- 
 ice or inefficiency. 
 
 methods employed* results attained by t 
 
 ublic-spirited officials, civic 
 bodies, and the press will be able to trans- 
 late obscure and misleading public records 
 into an intelligible and illuminating story - ; 
 to photograph official function and political 
 performance side by side; to make public 
 opinion itself expert in determining the 
 
 V.-rk City c 
 pal government ( 
 
 efficient than it should 1 
 
 trial incapacity; th; 
 (potentially) agency pi 
 ter of Greater New Yc 
 
 amount of preventable 
 criminality and indus- 
 at the most effective 
 
 • Boston Herald. October 2jrd, 1907. 
 
 MUNICIPAL RESEARCH. 
 
 ,m.|- 11I- nf municipal conditions 
 
 ra!h 
 
 recorded 
 
 licipal records. Or 
 
 1 nf N'iav Vork. described v 
 
 ;intr> and accomplishments 
 successful atfencv for gct- 
 1 of New York City* 
 
 1 -[.•■< eh, have 
 
 orced reforms in 
 n. have saved 
 stopped graft 
 
 Lddressed — 
 the official statement of the 
 .. lu _"to taxpayers who wish 
 
 nunitv needs are not provided 
 inicip.il officers who wish to ob- 
 support for efficient, far-seeing 
 
 : public 
 
 rewarded, ar.d also aid 
 
 i-iiv government. Inde< 
 methn.l of the bureau 
 
 recognized and 
 
 j, the temper and 
 are perhaps best 
 utntned up in the word -'constructive," " 
 tmet : .ve publicity, rather 1 
 nd carping attack, constructive 
 
 Organized in January, 1906, incorporated 
 in May of this year, the bureau, with its 
 1.1. -t-. and its 'Vunstructiw publicity" of 
 these facts, has to its credit numerous re- 
 
 1 ■ • II. 1 , - . I ] - ■ ■ 
 
 ing the Board of Aldermen and the Board 
 of Estimate to order that all future budgets, 
 departmental and general, must clearly in- 
 dicate for what specific purposes money 
 voted is to be expended. 
 
 The Bureau of Municipal Research arose 
 from the dissatisfaction of "social service 
 
 and in steady publication and 1 
 
 These social workers believed that if tax- 
 pavers knew the person and family cost of 
 maladministration 111 terms of life or death, 
 
 vigorously and with gre 
 effort. They were fortunate enough in find- 
 inc men of wealth ready to back the experi- 
 
 l, -hows their practical bearings, both 
 1 the officials' and the taxpayers' stand- 
 ts Being non-official and free from 
 
 ascertained facts to press home its 
 and its demand for reform. What 
 
 1 N. Y. Times (Editorial) Oct. 3jth, 7907. 
 
 HOW THE CITY CAN SAVE. 
 
 Bureaa of Municipal Re< 
 
 The Boston Herald asks, "\Vbat< 
 
COST OF STREET CLEANING, ETC. 
 
 Income (taxes, assessments, etc.)--- 158,869 marks 
 Expenditures 1,005,051 " 
 
 Wages, uniforms, repairs, insurance 77,7/6 marks 
 
 Sweeping c . 690,171 " 
 
 Snow removal 104,940 " 
 
 Sprinkling 123,676 
 
 Extras and sundries 8,488 " 
 
 Total 1,005,051 marks 
 
 Wages, etc 77>77& marks 62 per cent, street cleaning. 
 
 20 per cent, sprinkling. 
 
 18 per cent, snow removal. 
 
 Total expenditures: 
 
 Street cleaning 738,392.16 marks 
 
 Snow removal 120,491.25 '* 
 
 Sprinkling 137,676.05 
 
 Surface cleaned : 
 
 Street cleaning 2,983,908 square meters 
 
 Snow removal 2,983,908 " " 
 
 Sprinkling 3,472,544 
 
 Cost per square meter: 
 
 Street cleaning 24 75-100 pfennig 
 
 Snow removal 4 4-100 
 
 Sprinkling 3 96-100 " 
 
 For cleaning 1 square meter of asphalt street 40.8 pfennig 
 
 For cleaning 1 square meter of stone pavement (granite) 24.3 
 
 For cleaning 1 square meter of macadam 11.4 
 
 Cost of snow removal per cubic meter 1.96 marks 
 
 Cost of snow carting per cubic meter 38.88 pfennig 
 
 Sprinkling 1 cubic meter of water 46.29 " 
 
 Dresden, September, 1903. 
 
 48 
 
THE BUREAU OF CITY BETTERMENT 
 
 * OF THE 
 
 CITIZENS UNION 
 
 This Bureau has been established for the purpose of eo-operating 
 with district members of the Citizens Union, with individual citizens, 
 and with the officials and employees of the City Government in secur- 
 ing local improvements and an improved city administration in the 
 City of New York. 
 
 The Bureau will give prompt and careful attention to any com- 
 munication that may be sent to it. Personal inquiry or complaint 
 may be made at the 
 
 OFFICE OF THE BUREAU, 
 
 254 FOURTH AVENUE, CORNER 20th STREET.