NOISES AND NUISANCES

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 58, 10 March 1937, Page 10

NOISES AND NUISANCES

People are apt to put up w.ilh the noise of modern city life as a disagreeable, but inevitable, concomitant of civilisation. Complaints are made from time to" time, but concerted action to end the annoyance is rare. There is, therefore, a refreshing novelty about a cable message today from Sydney stating that "a deputation representing. the Noise and Nuisances Abatement Society placed" its noise-abatement case before the Premier (Mr. B. S. B. Stevens) and asked that the Government should deal . ruthlessly with the chief offenders." Some of these offenders are singled out for particular complaint, such as motorcyclists, early-morning milkmen, hawkers, newsboys, screeching children in the streets, and persons who operate radio sets at full blast." Wellington does not seem to be so badly off as Sydney in all. these special noises. Milkmen go about their matutinal business as quietly as they can, hawkers do not usually proclaim their wares annoyingly, newsboys are not a nuisance, nor is there much trouble with children in the street. -But when it conies to trams, described by the Sydney deputation as "the noisiest type of vehicle using the roads," there will be general agreement. Possibly this is one of the arguments which prompted the London Transport Board to abolish trams in the Metropolis. Motor-cyclists, with open exhausts, are an unfailing source of complaint, but Wellington, compared with Sydney, seems to be lucky in other respects. The climate is probably against an excessive parading of people in bathing costumes and "hairy individuals, not unlike anthropoid apes, not decently clad," who appear to "infest" Sydney's beaches and trams.