AMERICAN STREET NOISES

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 8129, 24 May 1912, Page 2

AMERICAN STREET NOISES

Ninety per cent, of our street noises are unnecessary. AVith that percentage of them at least the authorities should deal, and deal trenchantly, in appropriate by-laws such as are in force in some American cities. Pending this salutary action on the part of municipalities and borough councils, what can the hospitals do? There is reason to believe that those who vent superfluous energies or express their superabundant vitality and good spirits in the neighbourhood of hospitals by creating a degree of objectionable noise do simply because, they imagine that the. street is the proper place for such tumult. Alost of them are unaware that they are within hearing distance of any hospital, and we are sufficiently charitable to believe that if they knew that they were disturbing sick people they would be the first personate enjoin quietness. The public always respects tho request for peace on the part of the sick. Is it too much to hope that what the carman does <fu occasion for a private patient when straw has been laid down in the street, he may bo induced to ,do . as a measure or routine for the in-patients in our hospitals ? The experience of the American hospitals proves that this hope is not an idle one. In New York and other large cities one of the first things that strikes the attention of the visitor to a hospital is the multiplicity of the warning placards which iu ■ large red readable letters bear the inscription,. "Please slow down your cart when passing tho hospital,” “Please make as little noise as possible in the neighbourhood of the hospital,” “Please remember that the hospital is in this street and do not blow your horn,” or other similarly worded and equally p}ain requests. It is gratifying to find, on inquiry, that, since this policy of appealing to the man in the street has been adopted the percentage of street noises in the vicimtjr of the hospital has-much decreased. —‘/Hospital.”