The Pacific Commercial Advertiser

MUCH COMPLAINT OF WATERFRONT DUST
Visitors and Residents Suffer from Perpetual Clouds of Dirt and Cinders.

Not one but hundreds of people complain daily of dust on the waterfront. There is seldom a day when the wind does not carry clouds of dirt across the waterfront streets and into the various wharves, and for a person to spend ten minutes in that vicinity and return with clean linen is quite out of the question.

The dirt is not only a source of unpleasantness to resident people, but also to the thousands of visitors who come to the city. People arriving on trans-pacific and Inter-Island steamers are greeted by great clouds of filth, and by the time they reach King street they have dirt on their faces, cinders in their eyes, and an unwholesome state of mind. They get a bad first impression of the city and the way its streets are kept, and that impression is hard to overcome.

When a big liner is about to arrive, and carts do not go to the wharves when the public sprinkling is not done, the passengers have to face all the dust, when it would be little trouble for the board of supervisors to have the much-needed work done by making a rule that when vessels are due to arrive or depart, the sprinkling wagons along the front.

When the French cruiser Montcalm and the United States cruisers Cleveland and Chattanooga were here the dust was blown on deck and through port holes nearly every hour of the time, and the officers and men could not keep their wearing apparel and sleeping quarters in more than half decent condition.

Thousands of such men come to Honolulu every year, and it is a well-known fact that navy people spend when ashore about all they make. Honolulu gets their money, but with conditions such as prevail on the waterfront at the present time these visitors get the impression that the city cares very little for anything but their money.