Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1860-08-30
The yalae Of q Lsndsn Du., Hea,

From an article on the London poor, in the
July number Of the Quarterly Review, we clip
the following extract. 1t is a quotation o from
u book called 1.-The Missing Link -
The contents Of every dust bin in this vast
London are carried away periodically. The
dustman receives a small gratuity from each
householder, and when he has collected a cart
load, he demands another shilling at the gate
OF the Paddington wharves as be doposits II
within their precincts. A dust heap is very
valuable to the contractor, and q large one is
said to be worth four or FIVE thousand pounds
IL has to be sifted, sorted, and disposed of.
we can give but slight idea Of its miscella-
neous sonteats.
Its chief constituent element is cinders.
mixed with bits of coal, from the carelessness
or waste Of thousands of servants. which the
searchers pick out Of the heap to be sold forth
with. The largest and best of the cinders are
also selected for the use of laundresses and
orasisrs, whose purpose they answer better
than coke. The far greater remainder il
called breeze, because Il Is the portion left
after the wind has blown the cinder dust from
II, through large upright iron sieves, held and
shaken elbow high by the women who stand
IN the hesp, while men throw up the stuff into
the sleeves The breeze and ashes are sold to
brickmaker:, the ashes are mixed with the
clay OF the bricks, and the breeze is used AZ
fuel to burn between their layers
But the heap likewise includes software and
h1rdware. The former includes all vegetable
and animal mstter-all that will decompose.
All these are carried of to be employed as ma
nure. Stale fish and dead cats come into this
list, the skins of the latter being stripped Of
by the sifters, who can sell them for 4d. or Sd
according 10 color, white being most in req uest'
The hardware does not merely mean broken
pottery though Of this there is a great abu od.
ance. Part Of the pottery is matched and
msnded by the women who find it, and be-
comes their perquisite; the rest. ith the oyster
shells, is sold to make new roads.
But "hardsare" in the dust heap means
rags, which 60 TO the paper makers; bones.
winch 90 TO the bone boilers; old iron, brass
and lead, to salesmen Of those metals: brok en-
glass, to old glass shops; old carpets, old mat
tresses, old boxes, old pals, old baskets, bro
Ken tea boards, csndlesticks, old fenders. old
silk hsndkerchisfs, knives and salt-celisrs-
not forgetting old shoes, which 70 in baskets 10
the translators, who turn old shoes into new:
everything, in short, that the householder has
thought not worth mending, besides many q
wasteful addition which the master never kne w
from mansions where rec cklessness and extray.
agance bear rule.
Some Of the contents are the sifter's peroui.
site-a certain amount Of cinders and as much
paper and wood as they can carry, and cork.
Of bottles, by which alone some boast they can
find themselves in shoe leather pill boxes also
and galliPots are their lawful property. lew.
elry, silver forks and spoons and money, are
occasionally found, and too often appro,. lated
by the finder. One day q check for a consid
cradle sum was discovered among the vast,
paper.