Inhabitants To Keep Streets Clean

The first attempt to clean the streets was made in 1696, when a contract was made at thirty pounds sterling a year. Before this, every householder had been obliged to keep the street clean in front of his own residence.

These ordinances failed of effect; and in 1702, all the inhabitants were required to sweep the dirt into heaps in front of their doors on Friday morning and to have it removed before Saturday night under penalty of a fine of six shillings. The cart men were obliged to carry away the dirt at three cents a load, or, if they loaded their own carts, at six cents; in the event of a refusal, they were subject to heavy fines.

Garbage In Streets Disposed of By Hogs

From the Dutch days down to 1825, there were no methods employed for removing the refuse and garbage from the houses. All such matter was thrown into the streets where it was disposed of by the hogs, which were allowed to range the streets for that purpose, as the dogs used to do in Constantinople. It was estimated as late as 1820 that thirty thousand hogs roamed the streets of the city, and in Boston, Philadelphia, and other places, New York was a byword for filthiness.

Notwithstanding the fatal visitations of the yellow fever and other diseases, directly traceable to the festering masses of putrefying refuse in the city streets, it was not until 1823 that the Common council listened to the protests of the best citizens and directed that carts should be used to remove the garbage and that the swine should be captured and sent to the public pound. The men and boys of the streets offered such forcible resistance to the carts and to the attempt to arrest the hogs that the ordinance became a dead letter until several years later, when a proper public spirit of indignation against such antiquated methods was aroused, and the hogs were driven from the streets and the carts permitted to go unmolested.