Those who have ever seen a street sweeper's truck clanking around Cambridge at five in the morning know how archaic the machines are. If anyone could stay critical at that hour, there would probably be an outcry from a public used to watching their high powered servants perform at supersonic speeds. But the new speed fad hardly bothers the sweepers. They still prefer picking up the newspaper shreds of a high-charged world at the laconic pace of six miles an hour.

There are three of these cleaning trucks that dutifully swep the one hundred and thirty-five miles of Cambridge street. They are triangular, orange colored machines costing about eight thousand dollars each, with a single rear wheel for steering. Two large steel brushes whirling on the sides root the dirt out of the gutter while a large rear brush flips in into a conveyor belt that carries the mess into a big hopper. The trucks look pretty ungainly and make plenty of noise, but actually they are quite graceful. The secret is in the rear wheel steering that allows them to turn on a dime and makes each turn a kind of slither. Every night, from twelve to seven they slide around Cambridge whisking up tons of dirt that are dumped into piles and collected in the morning. During the day lesser cleaning is continued by a battery of men with brooms and carts called "section men."

The whole operation is masterminded by J. J. Coveney, the superintendant, who directs the care of the machines and chooses the sweeping routes each night. Coveney, a soft spoken man who oversees the job in a pin striped suit and vest, was born and raised in Cambridge. Eight years ago he was one of a group that inaugurated the night sweeping plan. Since then, he has been coming down to the Yard on Hampshire Street to send the men out and keep track of their progress. There is a kind of camaraderie between the boss and the driving trio; they think he is a good boss and Coveney thinks the world of them. "If by some miracle," he said, beaming on a departing sweeper, "I should ever become chief sanitary engineer of Massachusetts, I'd take care that my boys got a really good job."

Some of Coveney's enthusiasm for his work has rubbed off on the drivers who apparently aim at sweeping perfection. "If it weren't for parked cars," one of them remarked, "we could simonize this city." Weaving in and out of spaces between cars naturally keeps the speed down, though with the brushes raised on a straight away the machine can make a disjointed twenty miles an hour that looks like sixty. "But its better to drive slowly," one of the drivers said. "It takes a little longer but you pick up everything. Besides," he added, carefully shifting the sweeper into low, "it's better for the machine."

Cambridge has a good sweeping system, but for sheer trash Coveney thinks New York is ideal. Being long and thin, Manhattan island is a natural for a fine storm sewer system. In Cambridge, sewers are a mere six feet across. But New York sewers, according to Coveney, are beauties more than twice as wide--although he admits he doesn't get much chance to see them when he's there on vacation.