COSTLY. NOISE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5245, 29 February 1928, Page 4

COSTLY. NOISE.

BRITAIN PAYS £1,000,000 A WEEK. THE THIEF OF HEALTH. “ ‘Take the din out of dinnfer and put the rest into restaurants’ is quoted as being said by one sufferer from this present-day jazz, and I wish an inventor could be found to do it, said Professor Spooner, speaking t° tlie Society of Women Musicians. “■Many people seem to enjoy this terrible din in restaurants and elsewhere, so much so that one establ shment it pays its jazz band £16,000 a 1 year. “Some people think if they get so accustomed to noise that they no longer notice it that it is harmless to them. That is a fallacy, for, although noise may not be heard, the nerveforce suffers., and nloise, whether heard or not, is the most inveterate thief of health. “One of the most serious aspects of the noise problem is that of sleep, particularly in its relation to mental workers and invalids. Countless peo- -■ pie living near traffic noises are deprived of sufficient sleep and thereby injured in health. “We English are very slow to move, even when we see a thing ought to be done, but it is to be hoped that the success due to the tightening up of the law against ear-splitting hooters and noisy motor-cycle exhausts will lead to other beneficent enactments. “I think that in the. aggregate the economic loss due to impairment of working capacity owing to noise must be a good deal over' £1,000',000 a week in this country alone, but the loss due to ill-health and premature death cannot be estimated. “SO far, little ,has been done to combat this noise menace, and the only way, I think, is to agitate for a Public Healtlh Noise-abatement Act and to try and get tihe medical organisation of the League of Nations to take up the question in the cause of humanity.”