Gallipolis journal. [volume] (Gallipolis, Ohio) 1837-1919, 1853-12-29
How some People live Ia pnr,..


New York Daily Times gives us tn,
following insight to certain classes il
Partisan life:
The Walkers, or Wakeresses- non,
but women follow this professionals,
individuals whose occupation it is Il
rouse from sleep at an early hour sucl
persons as have business at the market
and must be there betimes. Theil
wages are two sous a morning for eacl
subscriber reused. 1t seems strange
that profession like this should require
any particular aptitude or capsbility.
but it has been found that one woman
will wake her customers in Just hall
the time required by another. In times
gone by, when the market-people lived
huddled together in the immediate Vi
cinity of the Halles, good reUilleure
would wait upon fifteen or twenty sub
seribers every morning. and thus earn
thirty or forty sous before day-break.
But now that the new Rue de Rivoli
has pierced the quarter, its denizens
have been dispersed, and the wakeres-
ses find it impossible to serve more than
half a dozen customers day. The
trade is falling into disuse.
The Eye Witness is man who lives
by crime-not by that which he com
mits himself, but by that perpetrated
by others. The momont he hears Of a
murder, or any catastrophe of that
sort, he Immediately repairs to the scene
of the affair, says he knows all about it,
picks up all the details he can find, adds
to them, recounts it over a dozen times,
gets a sort of notoriety as the individual
''that was there when it happened, ,"
leaves his name and address at the
nearest wine shop, and awaits the eff
feet. The examining judge hears of
this well-informed gentleman, and in
view to elucidate the case, has him at
once sent for. He comes, and is sworn,
and makes a total irrelevant disposition;
he tells what somebody else said that he
thought third person had imagined,
and what he guessed was the motive of
the quarrel. Beyond that he can throw
no light on the affair. But he has
earned his two francs-the wages of
every witness summoned to testify
and by his earnings in this way he lives.
The Secondhand Witness hangs
about the Palace of justice, and as gen
tlemen who have testified, come from
the various audience rooms, he asks
them if they mean to draw their two
francs; if they do not, he supplicates
them, for the love of God, and for sym
pathy with a wife and the usual num-
Der of children. to pass over to him the
emitting the bearer to the two francs
in question. The secondhand witness
makes hap-hazard money enough in
this way to live precariously, and die in
the hospital. ...
The Guardian Angel is a man whose
duty it is to frequent the drinking shops,
and the moment man gets tpsy, to
take him under his protection, to ac-
company him home, and put him to
bed. The individuals practicing this
profession are picked men-men who
never drink themselves-who have the
necessary moral authority to force obe-
dience from the drunken creature they
are conveying home-who can defend
him against attack, and, more than all,
who can prevent him from drinking at
the shops they pass on their way. The
price for this service is ten sous; and
there is not an instance on record of an
thus protected home and put
to bed having failed to discharge this
debt of honor. 1t is rule at the drink
ing shops, that when man cannot
stand, he must be taken off, and the
Angel is straightway called. The An
gels are kindly treated by the shop
keepers, whose interest it is that no one
Of his customers comes to harm. They
receive the odds and ends of the dinner,
and are recommended to the neighbors,
when reliable man for some confiden-
bal errand is wanted. Their honesty is
proverbial, and a Bacchanalian with
hundred francs in his pocket, who is
confined to their charge, is morally sure
of finding his hundred francs where he
left them, when be wakes the next morn
ing.
a rich tippler, lately deceased, who
spent the last years of his life in drink
ing blue wine at the barrier, left in his
will thousand francs to each Of the
Guardian Angels who alternately con-
Quoted him home, after his nightly
potations at the Watering Pot Of Mont
martre.
1t may safely be said that not one
person out of a hundred of the inhabi-
tants of Paris is aware of the existence
Of such modes Of obtaining a living.-i
The writer Of the feuilleton l have
says that he has learned to be
surprised at nothing, and that if he
we're told that there are people who
earn their bread by making tooth-picks
out of old moons, be should accept the
with equanimity, and believe
i with fanaticism.
The Prefect Of Police has forbidden
wine sellers 70 have Voltaic piles upon
their counters for the amusement of
their customers, as one accident has
happened, and as others would
be likely to follow, were the practice
continued. !,