Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1872-06-29

broken down vehicle through labyrinth
of stakes on the grounds of the Gle.
Generate des Petites Votures. He is
about to enter into prosperous course
of overcharging the public, shouting at
it when he gets his right fare, and now
and then breakingeits bones; yet be
looks down with a contempt which
nothing can equal on a lean mounte-
bank, who will overcharge nobody and
never break any bones but his own. he
is generally Gascon, this mountebank;
and his lank arms; shrunk chest and
hutey legs excite the hilarity of pair
of giant Auvergnats, who will, by and
by, get licenses as water-carriers. Why,
with one of their brawny arms they
could hold two of his size up in mid-air
at least, so they say, until the Gascon,
divining that he is being made the OBJ
ject Of jests, looks at them pointedly
with his shifty eyes, and offers to prove
his strength by throwing them both out
of the window; an offer which is eau
tiously declined. There is not much
talk in an Auvergnat, and such little as
there may be is not always Ineligible
to the outside world; nevertheless, the
pair in question cannot help asking the
Gascon what hopes he has of getting
his tumbler's license. The Gascon has
very little hope, he says, lapsing sud-
denly mournful.
From minute to minute
A sHARP-voIcED DETECTIVE
comes to the door and cries out name ;
and the company leaks out by drops of
one man at time, through door which
was once white, and is no longer So
There are postulants of twenty sorts
besides those already mentioned do
mestic servants, perambulating "ceco"
venders Chose men with velvet-covered
receptacles of licorice tea strapped to
their backs, and semi-circle of silvered
goblets jutting from contrivance on
their breasts), public fortune.tellers and
public scribes, market statesmen, and
sufferers in every variety, from the man
with no legs, who wants leave to propel
himself through the streets on a truck,
to the public horror and inconvenience,
down to the blind man with his dog who
wishes to stand near church or on a
bridge, with an appealing manuscript on
his chest. All these people require
licenses; all of them must be inscribed
OH the prefectoral books, with name, age,
residence, and antecedents in full; and
all of them have come supplied with a
very sheaf of certificates to attest that
they are honest folks. You might drop
your handkerchief or your watch without
fear among them; even the aspirant
chibOnRier who sits apart from the rest,
and patiently waits his turn to the last,
with his sullen consciousness of his
social inferiority, would restore your
property to you, asking no reward unless
you choose to give it to him. Now,
then" shouts the detective, when Bi jou is
left alone; the very last of all; and Bijou
gets up, fumbles underneath his blouse
for his papers" and shambles into the
august presence of the clerk who is to
interrogate him. And it is no child S
play, this inquisition. At a glance the
clerk has detected the records of three
sentences of Imprisonment on Bijous
papers. "Yes," pleads Bijou humbly;
'but they are all three for assaults when
drunk, not for theft" And it is be-
cause of your drinking habits that you
are reduced to becoming a ragman,
suggests the clerk; and to this Bijou
responds doggedly that one must live
somehow" IL the clerk were lacetious,
he might answer like Talleyrand that he
saw no necessity for it; but he confines
himself to q searching inquiry as to
what Bijou did during all the time that
the Commune lasted; for it is evident
that if any man, having served under
the Commune were allowed to earn his
bread honestly as q ragman, the salu-
tary principles of order would be under
mined. Bijou, however, succeeds in
proving that he held no term with the
Commune. He was mechanic once,
drink ruined him; if he is not author
lied to become a ragman now, he must
smash somebody in order to be sent to
prison again.
THE CLERK,
partly unbending, dismisses him with
the assurance that the matter will be in
quired into which means, that after
Bijou's antecedents have been closely
verified, and after he has spent four or
five more mornings cooling his heels in
the waiting.room Of the Prefecture, he
will be inscribed on the list of those who
are waiting for ragmanship vacancies.
This means, again, that, before Bijou
receives his patent OF appointment, some
three months or more must elapse; for
the ehiffonniers are close corporation,
numbering in all, men and women, no
more than four hundred and fifty souls.
These then are the preliminariest through
which Rijon has had to wade before be-
ing licensed to fish for valuables In dust
heaps. At first the chifoniers were
disconnected body, plying each man his
vocation for his own sole behoof; but in
time thi; system was found to be unpro
ductive, and so the chiffoniers organized |
themselves into q community, like those of
the mendicant monks in former days, or
the Greek brigands in ours. In every |
quarter Of Peris-and there are eighty |
quarters-exists a depot whittier the |
chifonniers carry, after sorting them,
all the good things they have been able
70 find in the evening-bits of old iron,
brass, rags, cloth cuttings, old pomatum
pots, gloves, battered hats, shoes, bones,
etc, and the district depots in their turn
forward all these treasures TO central
depot, where their value is appraised,
and the sum divided equally among the
members Of the brotherhood. Of course
there are things which the ragman is
allowed to keep for his own private use;
of such are cabbage stumps, carrot
shavings and other vegetable refuse, Of
which, one is sorry to say, he makes
soup; but, taking account Of these
deductions, the average earnings of q
ehifonnier still range from 2f. SOC. to
Sf. a day.