The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1874-08-20
New York Rag Pickers.


The rooms above ground in Bone
alley, where the rag pickers of New
York exist, are used only for the ordi-
nary purposes Of living. Business,
which begins in the street, is here re-
sumed only in the cellar, whence it is
transferred to the roof, and is finished
around the corner. Under the building
are dozen or more small vaults, ex-
tending beneath the pavement, and
lighted only by the narrow gratings
above them. The air in these vaults is
impure to the last degree, and is damp
and chilling. There is neither floor
nor tiles in them, and their clay bot
toms are Shiny and covered with mould.
Here, crouched upon their knees, the
old and young are busy from seven
o'clock in the morning till MONDAY in
asserting the contents OF their sacks,
which have been emptied upon the
Garth. These consist of cotton and
wooden rags, paper, lat. bones, crusts
of bread, old bottles and occasional
scraps OF leather and metals. They
are separated and placed in little piles.
All this work is completed by twelve
o'clock, at which hour the bone dealer
arrives in the alley to make his daily
purchases.
Bones are brisk at present at sixty
cents per barrel.
The little heaps of cotton and woolen
rags are scraped together and trans
ported to the roof of the building,
where they are suspended upon lines.
They are usually quite wet, and the
object in hanging them up is to get rid
of the foreign matter that clings to
them and which wind and rain will re-
move. They are not suffered to remain
long exposed, as too much heat would
dry them and reduce their weight to an
improbable figure. On Friday or
Saturday afternoons they are gathered
in separate bales and bundles and
carried to the ragdealers in the neigh
borhood or to large warehouse in
Third street, near Lewis. The prices
paid vary from time to time, but are
usually at the rate of about two and
one-fourth cents per pound for cotton
and three cents per pound for woolen.
At this rate the men, women and chill
dren engaged earn an average of about
eight dollars q week.
Fat is sold to the soapmakers, the
usual price being about two cents a
pound. Bread crusts are eagerly pur-
chased by Long Island countrymen,
who come after them with market
wagons and carry thLm away as food
for hogs, for which purpose they have
value of So so per hundred weighr.
Empty bottles OF every description
make up no small share of rag picker's
daily collection. both in volume and
weight. They are carefully packed
among the rags to prevent breakage,
and are sold at seven to eight cents per
dozen. The bottle merchant resides
opposite Bone alley, and his place OF
business is curiosity. He receives
miscellaneous collections and assorts
them after purchase. There you will
find wine bottles which have contained
the choicest importations, with the
remnants of their labels carefully pre-
served ink bottles, glue bottles, mu.
cilage bottles and babies nursing bot
ties blue bottles and green bottles
the smallest of crystal vials and the
largest and most uncouth Of all kinds
Of German Seltzer jugs; patent medi-
cine bottles, with the most astounding
names of miraculous liquids cast on
the sides. These make up the contents
of the shop. Broken glass is bought
hele at half cent per pound.
Many of the rags that find their way
into the garbage barrels and the cutters
are pregnant with contagion. Needless
or thoughtless people have, instead OF
destroying them by fire, thrown them
into the street. They are not cleansed
by the water with which they become
saturated, nor does the filth which at
taches to them destroy infection. In
fact, the street produces precisely the
condition required for the earliest pos.
sible termination of whatever seeds OF
disease and death may be concealed in
them. Selected from the grease, bones
and glass, jumbled together in the sack
of the rag picker, they are removed
from the vaults OF the cellars to the
roof, for the purpose of drying, and the
air which fans them reeds the lungs
alike of the poor and the rich-of the
factory girl and the millionaire's
daughter. Often, in the adjoining
tenements, some poor wretch dying
longs for breath of fresh air in his
close and overheated room, and prays
that the windows may be opened to ad
NIT the breeze that he watches curling
the smoke from the chimneys aud rust,
ling the clothes drying on an adjacent
roof. The easement is opened, only tc
admit the poisonous breath of tie wind
that has riotsd with the deadly rags and
comes to the Ups of the sufferer only tc
cool them forever. Surrounded by
malaria arising from filthy cutters
painting under heat that is simply al
incandescent stencil, breathing al
aerial poison, they gradually lose theil
hold on life, and sink away from iti
noise and fever into the quiet and chill
of the grave.