Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1878-02-20
The London Dust Man.

There he goes! A dusky gloom hangs
over the roofs Of great London City;
a similar gloom fills my room and seems
to have touched all the furniture with
smoky age, and as look down from the
window into the gloomy street, 1 see
him coming along slowly, and crying
in voice like a plea for help in afflic-
tion: "Dust oh ,-dust-oh ,-dust-oh -
dust-Oh."
When the London fog is gray We can
not see him very far off. for he, too, is
gray from head to foot with ash dust,
and as he approaches us he comes out
of the mist like phantom, though in
reality he is a substantial, square-built,
nous 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 trouser pockets, and his
head is covered by the kind of hat that
sailors call sou'wester. Bis only orna-
ment is pair of earrings; aud with his
head thrown back he sauEters along the
street by the side of his cart, repeating
in measured tones his cry" "Dust-oh-oh!
dust-oh ~
Now and then he stops at a house,
and his mate-he has a mate who is as
much like him as pea is like pea-de-
scends in the cellar, bringing forth the
ashes and refuse that have accumulated
In "a hours, and when the cart, which
is a square, box like affair. is filled he
starts for home with his load.
What a queer home it is! 1t is on the
outskirts of the city, far away from the
finer streets and buildings. A 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 as houses
quite as high, in fact, as the dismal
little shanties on the edge of the reser
vation i'm which the dust man and his
fellows live. Other carts and other
dust men are constantly coming and
going, dumping one load and then re-
turning to the city for another, and as
soon as load is dumped it is attacked
by a crowd of men, women and children
who with shovels, rakes and hooks,
turn it over and over, and raise sitting
clouds of dust.
The reader NAV think that the collec-
tions made by the dust man are valuelcss
but such is not the case.
There are more than 800, 900 inhabited
houses in London consuming more than
3, SOC, 900 tons of coal year, and be-
sides the ashes of this great quantity of
fuel, the dust man gathers the other
refuse of the house. He is employed
by a contractor, who agrees with the
corporation to remove the ashes, etc., /,
out of the city, aud the contractor
divides every load into six parts, as
| follows: Soil, or fine dust, which is sold
to brick makers for making bricks and
to farmers for manure; briele, or cinders
sold to brick makers for burning bricks
rags, bones and old metals, sold to mar
inc store dealers; old tin and iron
vessels sold to trunk makers for clamps;
bricks, oyster and other shells, sold for
foundations and road building; and old
boots and shoes. sold to manufacturers
of Prussian blue.
Sometimes much more valuable things
than these are found, and the reader
may remember the romance that
Charles Dickens made out of London
dust man" Our Mutual Friend"