NOISIEST CITY IN THE WORLD

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 172, 21 April 1928, Page 26

NOISIEST CITY IN THE WORLD

PARIS WINS NEW DISTINCTION

Owing to the curious fondness of French motor-drivers for continuously sounding their horns Paris has become omparably the noisest city in the world (says the correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian”). The famous dramatist M. Henri Bernstein, who lives in the Rue de I’Universite, once the quietest streets in the quietest of quarters, finding the endless hooting insupportable and his work rendered quite impossible, contracted with a firm of architects to have his study made soundproof. At great cost the walls and ceilings were lined with cork, but when all was done the nuisance was as great as before, and the author was obliged, for the sake of his work, to transfer himself to quiet rooms in an expensive hotel. Recently the Siene Court awarded him heavy damages against the architect. > The case has led the papers once more to utter vain protests against the

intolerable din of the Paris streets. In the “Journal” M. Clement Vautel draws attention to a new horror —the installation in the streets of loud-speakers of ear-splitting intensity for advertisement and other purposes. During the present carnival the municipality of Nice is transmitting throughout its main streets music and speeches, through instruments that bellow like a thousand bulls of Bashan united in one roar. Already this horror has made its appearance in Paris. “We must resign ourselves,” writes M. Clement Vautel, “for this is what thev 'call progress. Whether we like it or not publicity will force it upon us. Nor will the politicians consent for long to refrain from using it. It is only too easv to imagine in the near future a super-loud-speaker installed upon the top of the Hilfel Tower that will coinpel us to lend ear to its political vociferations.,”