NOISE EVILS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 248, 10 January 1928, Page 12

NOISE EVILS

NERVE STRAIN OF TOWN LIFE PROFESSOR ON MOTORS AND JAZZ The incalculable amount of suffering, injury to health, ar.d loss of wealth, caused by the noise of modern street traffic, were emphasised by Professor Spooner in a lecture he delivered in London on “Preventible Moise and the Thinker,” to the members ot the Society of Women Musicians. Most people, he said, claimed that thev got used to noise, and that therefore it did not affect them. Hence a fallacy, which he had not seen referred to. The primary reason why hideous noises were so complacently tolerated by the vast majority was that sound always in the ear was hardly heard, as it was a law of nervous stimulation that a continued activity of any animal structure resulted in less and less psvehic result, and that when a stimulus was always at work it ceased In time to have any appreciable effect. Thus, a constant noise, as of the sea waves or of some kinds of street traffic, might cease to produce any conscious sensation and be mistaken for silence an illusion that was far too prevalent. Hence the danger to public health, for although noise might not be heard, the nerve force suffered, the power of the nerve-pores and corpuscles being affected by the stimulation until it dodined from exhaustion. Another common fallacy was to state that as we could not get rid of such noise we might as well learn to enjoy it. “Our traffic noises,” said the professor, “are disgraceful, and well may the editor of the ’Engineer’ suggest that gramophone records should be made of them to enable future generations to get a measure of our barbarism in these days.” He thought he might venture to assume that lovers of music could not always enjoy the deafening syncopations of the jazz bands that were so popular in our fashionable restaurants. Personally, he liked to talk with his friends when dining at such places, but he often found conversation impossible. He urged that noisy motor omnibuses should be warned off the streets. Horns or hooters should be standardised as to pitch, and a low melodious note adopted. The use of the nerverackiflg pneumatic drills for breaking up roads, etc., should not be permitted. The alarming depreciation in the value of house property on or near the noisy traffic routes must amount to an appalling figure, and called for serious attention. The most serious aspect of the problem, and one which had received no attention, was the enormous loss due to the impairment of working capacity and efficiency in city and industrial life. In the aggregate the economic loss due to this kind of wastage must be staggering in amount. But the loss due to ill-health and premature death could not possibly be estimated.