Paris Extending Anti-noise Drive

Manawatu Times, Volume 60, Issue 277, 23 November 1935, Page 13

Paris Extending Anti-noise Drive

NO DAYTIME BLARE TO BE ALLOWED POLICE CARRY LONG LIST OF FORBIDDEN INROADS .ON’ CITY’S QUIET PARIS. —Resolved to rid itself of the reputation of being tho world’s noisiest city, Paris is intensifying its anti-noiso .campaign. Instructions have just been issued which, if strictly enforced, wifi transform tho French capital into a city of comparative silence. Completing measures already rn effect for several weeks, thanks to which no honking* may bo heard between 9 at night and 8 in the morning, steps have now been taken to lessen daytime noises as well. Seroecnmg brakes, popping motorcycles, roaring exhausts, raucous klaxons, rattling ashcans, rumbling trucks, banging eu- . gincs, whistling lugs, ranting radios—these aro a few of tho noisemakers which have now been banned, or subjected to strict regulation. A circular has been distributed to all police officials by the Paris authorities calling on them to apply and enforce these silence measures, and laying down tho rule that "repression of noise, night and day, has become an important part of the duties of tho guardians of tho peace.” Always tho Other Follow Recalling the ruiiug passed in 1991 that "all unnecessary noises, or sounds duo to a lack of precaution, which arc of such a nature as to disturb rest and calm of llio populace, are forbidden,” tho circular points out that anyone making such noises is punish- 1 o by a line of 11 to 15 francs (3/- to 4/-). With tho single exception of the nocturnal ’ suppression of automobile horns and klaxons, however, this decree has until now remained a dead letter. Noiso was a habit, in Paris, and one not easy to correct. Each individual had a typical tendency, to consider his own noises as necessary, while : only his neighbours’ were ‘'unnecessary” and "due to a lack of precaution.’’ To get around this difficulty, the policeman of tho, capital have, now been furnished with lists of tho offending sounds and have been instructed to exercise special diligence in silencing them. If tho "llics” (French for "cops” or "Bobbies") take tlieir instructions seriously, then a new era of quietness is in sight for Parisians. Carpet-Beating Hours The most significant of these instructions aro those relative to the radio. Recognizing that tho bellow--1 ing of inconsiderate amplifiers lias become a. scourge of tho city, the circular prescribes that'it is the duty of policemen to respond immediately to any appeals from ■ harassed tenants

whose neighbour’s radio or phonograph is making itself heard all over building—or oven, as often happens, .11 over the neighbourhood. Tho thunderous rumble of hea.j trucks is another sourco of unpleasant sound which has now been regulatedAll trucks have been limited to spe.'a of from 12 to 25 miles per hour, an. tlioso with solid, tires lmvo been conlined to even lower speed limits, iu addition, solid-tired trucks have b entirely barred from certain streets .r. night. Ask-cans and garbage containers, :L is proved, must no longer bo “drug.ri about and thrown down” upon sidewalk, but must in future bo "carried and carefully deposited.” Thu samo ruling also applies to the farnumx clatter of milk cans. Carpets, in accordance with an on Parisian custom, can still bo beaien out of tho windows of Hats, but these beatings must be confined, in summer to the single hour between 7 and 8 a.r.., and in winter to tho two-hour per. zl between 7 and 9. In tho caso of v h.dows opening on courts, however, Lit boating is allowed to rovorbato three hours in tho morning and to i_• sound again for an hour in tho afternuon-