Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1860-08-29
MISCELLANEOUS READING.

THE VALUE OF LONDON DUST HEAP.
la an article on the London Poor the Q1ar-
terly Review quotes the following extract
from book entitled 1.-The Missing Link." /"
showing the amount Of valuable material that
is sometime hidden in. the refuse of great
city.
t The contents Of every dust-bin in this vast
London are carried away periodically. The
dustman receives small grstuity from each
householder, and when he has collected
cart load, he demands another shilling at
the gate Of the PaddiDgton wharyes, as he
deposites it within their precincts. dust
heap is very valuable to the contractor, and
large one is said to be worth four or five
thousand pounds. 1t has to be sifted, sorted.
and disposed of. We can give but slight
idea of its miscellaneous contents. 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 forthwith.
The largest and best Of the cinders are also
selected for the use of laundresses and bra
ziers, whose purposes they answer better
than coke. The far greater remainder is
called breeze, because it is the portion left
after the wind has blown the cinder dust
from it, through large upright iron sieves,
held and shaken elbow high by the women
who stand in the heap, whilst men throw up
the stuff into the sieyes. The breeze and
ashes are also sold to the brickmakers, the
ashes are mixed with the clay of the bricks,
and the breeze is used as fuel to burn be-
tween their layers.
But the heep likewise includes soft ware
and hard ware The former includes oil
vegetable aud animal MATERIAL that will
decumpose. All these are carried OFT to be
employed as manure. Stale fish and dead
eats come into this list-the skins OF the lat
ter being stripped off by the sifters, who can
sell them for I'D. or 3D., according to their
color. white being most in request. The
hard ware" does not merely mean broken
pottery, though of this there is great abun-
dance. Part of the pottery is matched and
mended by the women who find it, and be-
comes their perquisite the rest, with the
ovster-shells, is sold to make new roads,
But hardware in the dust heaps means rags,
which 90 to the paper-makerS bones, which
90 to the bone boilers old iron, brass, and
lead, to statesmen of those metals broken
glass, to old-glass shops; old carpets, old
mattresses, old boxes, old pals, old baskets.
broken tea boards, candlesticks, tenders, old
silk handkerchiefs, knives and salt-cellars
hot forgetting old shoes, which 60 in bas-
kets to the translators, who turn old shoes
into new everything, in short, that the
householder has thought not worth mending.
besides many wasteful addition which the
masters never knew, from mansions where
recklessness and extravaganza bear rule.
Some of the contents are the sifter's per-
quisite-a certain amount of cnders and IS
much paper, and wood as they can carry,
uud corks of bottles. by which alone some
boast they can find themselves in shoe-leather:
pll-boxes also and gallipots are their lawful
property. Jewelry, silver forks, spoons, and
money are occasionally found, and too often
appropriated by the finder. One day
check for considerable sum was discovered
among the waste paper"