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Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 13110, 8 May 1908, Page 6

Writing in the City "Argus,"' Mr August Impertinences. Siedo makes some interesting proposals for mitigating tho noises of cities. Noise, ho points out, has been described as the most impertinent of all forms of interruption, and he cannot see why cities should resound with this kind of rudeness. City streets are filled with the discordant clamour otf tho opera of -industry, "an opera without aim or art, and a worse infliction on many «. town than bad air or poor food." Why should the maddening din of whistle, bell, and motor horn bo tolerated? 'If ono uses improper language or drives on the wrong side eif tho street a stern magistrate straightway imposes, a penalty for transgressing the law and disturbing tlie public peace, yet. tho worst albominat ions in the way of noises, greater disturbers of peace than any, are allowed, nay, apparently even encouraged." Engines have shockingly unmusical whistles, when they might soothe the ear with a delightful chord. Good tone, he points out to whistlemakers, carries better than bad tone, and a flute-like mellowness would be' found both musical and telling. Single notes arc crudo and i~nex press iv© in this ago of a highly-developed harmonic sense. Tho tram-bell is about as bad in shape as it could be, but bells offend more by their maddening iteration than by their had tone. Still, British and colonial makers could get better tone if they mixed their materials in different proportions. 'It is to bo feared that among fruit and fish hawkers the chances of improvement are less, but even here thero is hope should a Caruso of hawkers arise who can proclaim his vocation in mellifluous oadences. Like a famous 'bottle-ho' in Naples, whose song produced an abundant shower of bottles dm sheer admiration of his talent,* such a one oould ho reckoned on to effect samething in the nature of a revolution in I the calling—that is provided he were not seized on for .the operatic .stage." Even th© postman's knock might be mado less disturbing, for did not Beethoven transform it into a symphony? There are precedents for the mitigation of city noises, if such aro wanted. Fifty years ago the cracking of so mild an instrument of torture as tho whip -was forbidden in the streetof Nuremburg, and now in all German cities objectionable noises are forbidden, even the pastime of playing the piano or the violin with your window open.