NOISE AND SMOKE

Greymouth Evening Star, 31 October 1933, Page 8

NOISE AND SMOKE

SYDNEY’S GROWING EVILS. Two medical authorities told the Health Inspectors’ Conference at Sydney recently that three great evils — menaces to health —were increasing in Sydney. The metropolitan medical officer of health, Dr. J. S., Purdy, gave an address on the extent, causes, and harmful effects of the city’s, noises. Professor Harvey Sutton, of Sydney University, said that. Sydney was becoming the smokiest city in Australia, and was neglecting proper planning and housing. “Avoidable noise, the course of modern life, with its inevitable toil of nerve energy, neurosis, and intractable insomnia,” Dr. Purdy continued, “is well illustrated by the noises of our streets. In- addition to the strident horns of motor-cars and cycles, the clanging of bells, exhausts without pneumatic tires, tramcars, and in the early morning the-voices of the butcher,..the milkman, the baker, of the itinerant vendor, and the raucous shouts of newsboys—our prayer might be to bo delivered from the loud speaker.”

Dr. Purdy’said that noise was heard not only on the land, but in the air and in the sea. In New York it had been found that 52 per cent, of noise was caused by traffic and transportation. The clatter and clang of trams and the elevated railway in New- York were evidently more disturbing than the trams in congested Pitt Street, but sometimes in Sydney when a tram was passing it was impossible for a. man to hear his own voice. The harbour, too, had its i-foises —foghorns, sirens,' tugboat whistles ,and motor yachts’ exhausts. They must look to the phy-sicist,-the engineer, and the architect to apply known principles to reduce the nuisance, and ultimately, although this was a long way ahead, to eliminate it altogether. There was a possibility of legislation being introduced shortly to deal With the matter.

Referring to Sydney’s smoke nuisance, Professor Harvey Sutton said that Sydney’s position' as a- seaboard' city saved it considerably from smoke, 1 ; but the visible effects of smoke in oldworld cities were not absent from Sydney. They represented a definite economic. loss. Intensive'fogs were largely due to suspended solids in the air, another evidence of which was the funereal pall over the city which was only absent, after heavy rain. They had not, up to the present, suffered in a. marked degree from smoke, but. the indications were that they might do so. Many' hardy offenders were being allowed to do as they liked. Legislation should be made more effective. The time had come for more- definite fuel controljn Australia. They had been exceedingly wasteful.

Professor Harvey Sutton said that the reduction of the value of sunshine by smoke was considerable. The average sunlight factor in Sydney was lower than in Persia, Honolulu, Manila. and the Malay States for llie summer months, though it ought, to be higher. In England domestic smoke, was blamed for part at, least. of the high infantile mortality in indn.-drial areas.