The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1878-05-03
The London Dust-Man.


There he goes A dusky gloom hangs over
the roofs of great London City; similar
gloom fills my room and seems to have
touched all the furniture with smoky age,
and as look down from the window Iinto
the gloomy street, see him coming along
slowly, and crying in a voice like plea for
help in ahiction: "Dust.oh dust oh -
dust-oh dust oh ~
When the London fog is gray we cannot
see him very far off, for he, too, is gray from
head to foot with ash-dust, and as he ap-
proaches us he comes out of the mist like a
phantom, though in reality he is substan-
tial, square. built, deep-chested fellow, shod
with enormous Blucher shoes (the soles of
which are bright with nails and clad in
loose blouse, and trousers that are tied up
about the knees. The blouse is open at the
chest, and is lifted to the waist by his big,
brown hands, which are tucked in his trous-
er pockets, and his head is covered by the
kind of hat that sailors call sou -wester.
His only ornament ia a pair of earrings :;
and with his head thrown back he saunters
along the street by the side of his cart, re-
peating in measured tones his cry, "Dust-oh
oh dust oh -
Now and then he stops at house, and
his mate-he has a mate who is as much
like him as pea is like pea --descends into
the cellar, bringing forth the ashes and re
fuse that have accumulated in twenty.i four
hours, and when the cart, which is square,
box affair, is filled he starts for home with
his load,
What queer home it is 1t is on the
outskirts of the city, far away from the finer
streets and buildings. \ large space of
ground is as gray and dusty as an African
or Western desert, and is broken by mounds
OF ashes, some of which are only few feet
high, while Others are almost as high, in
fact, as the dismal little shanties on the edge
of the reservation in which the dust-ma and
his fellows live, Other carts and other dust
men are constantly coming and going dump
ing one load and then returning to the city
for another, and as soon as load is dump
ed it is attacked by crowd of men, women
and children, who with shovels, rakes and
hooks, turn it over and over, and raise stiff
ling clouds of dust.
The readers may think that the collections
made by the dust men are valueless, bu
such is not the case.
There are more than 800 900 inhabited
houses in London, consuming more than 3,
5OO,O 900 tons of coal year, 'and besides tn,
ashes from this great quantity of fuel, the
dust-man gathers the other refuse of the
house. lie is employed by contractor
who agrees with the corporation to remoy,
ths ashes, etc, out of the city, and the con
tractor divides every load into six parts, a
follows:
Soil or fine dust which is sold to brick
makers for making bricks and to farmers fo
manure briese, or cinders sold 20 brick
makers for burning brick rags, bones an
old metals, sold to marine store dealers; oil
tin and iron vessels, sold to trunk. make
for clamps; bricks, oyster and other shell
sold for foundations aud road building
and boots aud shoes, sold to the mauuiaotu
rers of Prussian blue.
Sometimes much more valuable thing
than these a'e found, and the reader may r,
memoer the romance that Charles DickeI
made out of London dust man-"Our NJ,
tual Friend"
1t is in sitting the different parts OF los
: that the men, womea and children are en-
ployed they are as busy as ants; mere b,
bies and wrinkled old danes take part
: the labor, and all of them are so cover,
with dust and ashes that they are anythir
but pleasant to contemplate, though, as
rule, they are useful, honest, and industrio
d members of society.
, "Dustie' is what the Londoners familia
= ly call the dust man, and only few kpc
in what ignorance aud poverty he lives. O
would thinS that he would work himself
toa better occupation, but his family ha
been dust men for generations, aud the pe
: erations after him are not likely TO chang
IS. Nicholas