Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1880-06-24
5elistellaneuns &eadiug.
SOME STRANGE AyOCATI0NS.

SOME STRANGE AVOCATI0Ns.
Said a witness under cross examination
II am an Early-caller. I calls diferen
tradesmen at early hours, from 1 till $3.50 il
the morning and that is how I get my living
I gets up between ~ and l; goes to bed a
6 and sleeps until the afternoon. I call
bakers between and 2-the bakers are th'
earliest of all. What sort of living h
made is not recorded. A pound week, w
should say, would be the outside figure, ant
to earn that he would need couple Of scores
of customers. The early callers fee is wei
earned, since but for his intervention hi
clients would often lose days pay, if not b
thrown out of work altogether, by failing tt
keep time. Not so deserving of encourage
ment are "tuppennies," carrying on their 70
cations in those quarters of London where
pawnbrokers and poor people abound. They
are feminine Intermediates between the pawn
broker and folks anxious to raise loan upor
their belongings, who, rather than transact
such business for themselves, are willing te
pay twopence for every parcel conveyed to
everybody's "uncle" or redeemed from his
clutches. These go.betweens, it is averred
also receive quarterly commissions from the
tradesmen they favor with their patronage
and so one way and another contrive to make
comfortable living out of their neighbors
necessities.
There are men in Paris, birds Of a feather
with the chiffonier, who 60 from hospital to
hospital collecting the linseed plasters that
have served the turn of doctor and patient
afterward pressing the oil from the linseed
and disposing of the linen, after bleaching
it, to the paper-maker. Others make couple
of francs day by collecting old corks, which
being cleaned and pared, fetch, it is said, half
franc per hundred.
A lady-resident of the Faubourg St. Ger.
main is credited with earning good income
by Matching red. black and brown ants for
pheasant preservers One Partisan gets his
living by breeding maggots out of the foul
meats he buys of the chifoniers, and fattening
them up in tin boxes. Another breeds mag.
gots for the special behoof of nightingales ;
and third marchand d'astieots boasts of
selling between thirty and forty millions
of worms every season for piscatorial pur'
poses. He owns great pit at Montmatre,
wherein he keeps his store. Every day
his scouts. bring him a fresh stock, for
which he pays them from 5 to 10 pence per
pound, according to quality reselling them
to anglers atjust double those rates, and clear
ing thereby something over e300 year.
This curious avocation is not unknown in
England. Some twelve years ago we are
told, Mr.. Wells, a fishing-tackle maker of
Nottingham, in order to insure constant
supply of bait to his customers, started farm
for the rearing of lobworms, cock'spurs, ring
ra1let braudtiugs,un and sther worms in demand
among the disciples of Walton, who abound
in the old lace town. To keep his farm stock
ed, men and boys 60 out at night collecting
worms in the meadows and pastures; moist,
warm night yielding from two to six thou
sand worms As soon as they are brought in,
they are placed in properly selected moss,
feld-moss for choice, to scour until they
become little more than skin-freshly caught
worms being too tender for the anglers to
handle; while "when worm is properly ed
ucated, he is as tough as bit Of India-rubber,
and behaves as a worm should do when put
upon a hook" When this condition is at.
tained, the worms are packed in moss and
put up in light canvas bags for the market
This worm merchant does not entirely depend
upon the industry Of his collectors, but breeds
large quantities himself in his own garden
the component parts of his breeding heap be-
ing secret he not unnaturally keeps to him.
self Chambers Journal