Morning journal and courier., 1880-05-27
Some Strange Avocations.

Said @ witness under cross-examination 1T am an early caller. I calls different tradesmen at early hours, from till 5:3O in the morning, and that is how get my living I gets up between 12 and :; goes to bed at and sleeps till the afternoon. I calls bakers between 1 and 2-the bakers are the earliest of all" What sort of living he made week is not recorded. A pound week, we should say, would be the outside figure, and to earn that he would need a couple of scores of customers. The early callers fee is well earned, since but for his intervention his clients would often lose days pay, if not be thrown out of work altogether, by failing to keep time. Not so deserving of encourage ment are the up-pennies, carrying on their vocation in those quarters of London where pawnbrokers and poor people abound They are feminine intermediates between the pawnbroker and folks anxious to raise loan upon their belongings, who, rather than transact such business for themselves, are willing to pay two pencef for every parcel con veyed to everybody's ''uncle" or redeemed from his clutches. These go-betweens, 1t is averred, also receive quarterly commission from the tradesmen they favor with their patronage; and so, way and another, contrive to make a comfortable living out of their neighbors necessities.
 There are men in Paris, birds of feather with the chiffonier, who go from hospital to hospital collecting the hnseed 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 papermaker. Others make couple of francs day by collecting old corks, which, being cleaned and pared, fetch, it is said, half 8 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 Parisian gets his living by breeding maggots out of the foul meats he buys of the chiffoniers, and fatten- ing them up in tin boxes. Another breeds maggots for the special behoof of nightin- gales; and third marchand dasticots boasts of selling between thirty and forty millions of worms every season for piscatoriai pur- poses. He owns great pit at Montmartre, wherein he keeps his store. Every day his scouts bring him fresh stock, for which he pays from to 10 pence per pound, accord ing to quality; reselling them to anglers at just double those rates, and clearing thereby something over $500 year.
 This curious avocation is not unknown in England. Some twelve years ago, we are told, MT. Wells, fishing tackle maker of Nottingham, in order to insure 8 constant supply of bait for his customers, started farm for the rearing of lob worms, eockspurs, ringtailed brandlings and other worms in demand among the disciples of Walton, who abound in the old lace town. To keep his farm stocked, men aud boys go out at night collecting worms in the meadows and pas lures; moist warm night yielding from two to six thousand worms. As soon as they are brought in, they are placed in properly se- lected moss, field-moss for choice to SCOUT until they become little more than skin freshly caught worms being too tender for the anglers to handle; while ''when worm is properly educated, he is tough as bit of india-rubber, and behaves as worm should do when put upon the hook" When this condition is attained, 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 him self in his own garden-the component parts of his breeding heap being secret he not unnaturallY keeps to himself.