The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1879-01-23
Some Queer Industries.

not know how the other half lives.
saying, by the way, that touches agreat
many more people than the world sus
poets. In these days, when everybody
must be, or fancies that he or she must
be, in society,"" the struggle to make
ends meet involves many shifts in the
home circle, which are only known to
the member of that circle, and the Sc
crets of which they keep with Spartan
firmness. Outside are show, expense
and glitter; inside are anxiety, shabbi-
ness, pinching and crashing of teeth;
and if, Asmodeus-like, we could peep
into all the fashionable houses and note
the interior ,nenGge, we should be more
than little surprised. and probably
very much startled.
But it is not with these decorous
griefs and difficulties that this article
will deal, but with much lower STRAIT
UNI of population-indeed, the very
lowest. There is not a capital in Eu-
rope or America in which hundreds of
people do not rise up in the morning
uncertain as to where they shall get
their meals for the day. or, indeed, if
they shall get any; and the hidden life
of these dinnerless and supperless
ones must be as extraordinary as often
:t ..>~..A Lo sllcsVuo. III LUIluOn ana
in New York there is probably a
more monotonously sad existence for
thousands of their inhabitants than in
any other cities; for the masses of
people are so great, and the race for
existence so keen, that numbers must
get shouldered aside and forced to de-
pend on charity, or to do worse. In
Paris, too, there is a vast amount OF
distress and crime, but there are at the
same time PROBABLY more outlets for
employment amid the restless and va
ried life of the Partisan world. Some
few of these industries we are about to
relate: for, with their extraordinary
queerness, they read us many lesson
of perseverance and the value of little
things.
In no towns in the world, perhaps,
except those in China, is the value of
little things better understood than in
Paris, and particularly in that essen
TALLY Partisan branch of industry which
caters for the hungry man. Even in
the lowest quarters of Paris people must
dine just as they must in the boule-
wards and the Palais-Royal; but the
modes of dining are so different that
they might belong to two different
worlds. The expensive dinner has
often been described, and, in these
days of quick travelling, when Paris is
only eight hours from London, dining
there is as familiar as dining in London;
but few people have ever penetrated
into these hooks and corners where the
customers measure their appetites by
confines, and very frequently can only
crafty them in an unpleasantly inter-
mittent manner. In these Barmecide
establishments, plate of meat can be
had for two sous "a penny, and one Of
vegetables for half-penny, while some
of the meals combine with the chance
of getting something good to eat the
thrilling possibility of getting nothing.
This is playfully called phasard lie Ia
fourchette (the chance of the fork) and
consists in the player taking one shot
for his money with n broad two
pronged fork into seething caldon,
and bringing up whatever he is able to
stick the fork into. An old hand often
succeeds in landing a succulent frag-
ment of something unknown, but a
novice finds the coveted morsel evade
the prong and leave him respondent
and djnnerless.
Another branch of the purveying
business, and one, too, in which for
tunes have been made, is that of selling
harlequins," which consist of an Ola
podrida of scraps of every kind, and
sold for halfpenny a plate. The idea
of calling this collection of eatable
patches by the name of harlequins,
from the dress of divers pieces and col
ors which decorates that stage profess
sional, is Partisan to the backbone,
and suggests tie cynical grin with
which the mess is regarded by its pur-
chasers. The harlequin purveyor is on
terms of business with all the cooks at
the restaurants of the neighborhood,
from whom he or she buys the broken
scraps collected by the end of the day,
at the rate of three to three and half
francs the basketful. Indeed, this is
the most lucrative portion of the cooks
trade; for, though he earns probably
pound or thirty shilling a month for
his salary, he will make twice or three
times as much by the perquisites which
he sells to the harlequin merchant. A
fine basketful it is, from breadcru:nbs to
beefsteak and truffled turkey, bones, fat,
pickings, parings--all is fish that comes
into this net. But valuable as the as
sortmcnt is for nutritious purposes,
some portions of it fetch still higher
price, such as the fat, which is careful
ly sorted and sold to merchants, to be
converted into lamp-oil. The bones,
too, at least those which are bare of
meat or skin, are picked out and sold
back again, under the name of rejouis-
sa,sce, to the restaurants, to make their
common soups; and, having done duty