Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1871-05-25
OUR SATURDAY NIGHT
Wait for the Morrow.

Tonight we have been IN one OF the
oueerest dives or cellars in the city.
If our little friends-the boys and girls
who have good homes to rest Ia and low
ing hearts TO care for them will sit all
about us-er sit on their little stools OF
chairs in the corner while mamma or papa
reads to them, we will tell them all about
it.
The people of New York do not live
like the poor people in the country, where
food is cheap and fuel plenty. They have
a hard time Of it here, and go many day
without decent meal Every merning
for a month or more we have noticed a
dirty old woman. with an old, dirt-col-
ored, ragged and patched dress dragging
about her feet, with a great bag like a
coffee sack on he back, walking along
looking and poking with crooked wire in
the boxes and barrels filled with
rubbish, set out en- the sidewalk each
morning for the scavengers or ash men to
load into carts and carry away.
Out in the country housekeepers throw
their ashes, bones, old boots, hoop-skirts,
broken dishes, bottles and such rubbish,
into the street or the b.ck yard. In New
York this stuff ia put in a box or barrel
each day, then early in the morning, be-
fore or by sunrise, set out on the
side walk. Men go all about with carts
emptyiug the contents of these boxes or
barrels into their carts to be carried away
to the edge of the river, dumped into
q At boats or scows, and then floated away
to some island or distant place to be un-
loaded and got out of the way.
In the morning before the cartmen or
scavenger come, rag-pickers and bone
hunters go about, looking into all these
boxes to pick out little bits of coal not
burned in the CRATE, but emptied out with
the ashes, bones, crusts of bread, pieces of
meat, all dirt, potatoes and other raw or
cooked vegetables thrown away by SER
wants; old dishes, glass ware, dirty rags
and all such stuff continually being
thrown away. The old dishes are mended,
old bottles cleaned up and sold to drug
gists-old bones, crusts, pieces of meat
and vegetables cleaned and made into
soup for cheap boarding houses or the
poor who live in dirty cellars or over
crowded tenement houses
One of these rag-piekers, az thew are
called, is an old woman-one of hundreds
of old W. men in this tn mess all over the
city. Often have we noticed her. About
sixty years old. She never stops to talk
to anybody. She goes from box to box
from barrel to barrel-from door to door.
pokinp. looking, digging into and picking
out what she can find till her old sack.
which holds about three bushels. be filled
with her legitimate plumber Then she
Tugs it off to cellar where the rag-pick-
ers go to sort their stuff, sell that which
is of use to rap-buyers, old Junk or rub
bish dealers. Sometimes these rap-pick-
ers make two shillings day-sometimes
two or three dollars, az they find stuff in
the rubbish they hunt over
A few mornings ago we followed one
old woman more than an hour as she
trudged along. till her seek was full.
Then she lifted it on her shoulders, and
with back bent almost to breaking, she
started down street to a sorting cellar
Tonight we have been in that cellar
nearly two hours. seated on an old nail
key. talking to the dirty old man who lie
the merchant Of misery" here doing
business. Saturday night he pays off
setties-hxes MP his business" counts
bis gains and then goes to sleep in his
rags, happy as king, and dirty as
happy! Here we met again the old
woman. And this is what she told us.
after We had asked hundred questions.
promised her bundle of "good rags" if
she would come for them, and got her to
talking.
Said che, in squeaking, garrulous
voice, as if her throat was lined with
horse hair and coal ashes. sieaa
"Yes, lite worse nor dogs life, cos it's
longer But it's nothin' when you gets
n.ed to II, and settles right down to it !!
The hardest is 10 settle down to, but it's
the easiest when you do it. There be lots
of us in the business. DA
"As you say, 'twant aller 60. Once I
was belle. You needn't smile-it's 80.