Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1881-12-30
RAGS AID sH0DDY.
a Considerable Industry Of Maine Cite.


R4J9vena1aon or Old Garments Over.h>
0feken 6lass aRd CASTOR Corsets.
Inc iiveliest morning episodes on Lisbon
street are bright and early in the days when
the regular dirt carts make their round. when
the sidewalks for the streets length are curbed
with old boxes, battered wssh- boilers. barrels
c0al-hoGs and baskets, and hen the =. . n;cL.
ers hold tournament No one but the carly
conner sees this scene In an hour or an AZ.
ter the boxes are set out, they have been sift-
ed and nearly everything but the coal ashes
has disappeared. Every shred d cloth. every
scrap Of paper. every old rubber, every bit Of
metal or bone has been culled. The dirt car,
gets only the dust of the earth-perhaps. in
the summer time. little rotten fruit. but on
~ that which Is too far gone for the street
boys, who take their turn after the more le-
gltimate inspection of the junk dealers. ard
riot in the spelling fruit that has been throw
out Of the stands. The chiefs of the rag.pick-
ers are a stout. gray-hsired matron. with
muscular arms and back. who must be called
old, but Who carries a seventy-five pound load
IN sack on her back.-and a queer little old
man with dog, scarf and a wheel barrow.
when these two meet at a box or barrel. and
scramble for the hidden treasures, the dust
nies. -Four arms go down into the refuse and
twenty fingers and thumbs feel for the prizes
amid smothered growls and occasional empty
ings into the sack or barrow The woman
generally comes mp with the biggest armful
and the reddest face. Then comes the race
for the next repository.
RAGS AND Rae COLLECTORS.
There's nothing that comes nearer TO CASH
finland or can be turned more readily into
gold than rags,-ihe tatters which we throw
to the rag pickers. While other commodities
go out of style or become deprecated in value.
rags are always sure TO find ready sale and
the ready cash. The value of the business
done annually by the three dealers in rags in
the two cities, will exceed $40, 900. and over
200 tons of rags are annually shipped from
here. The business not only gives employ
ment and bre adj and butter to numerous peo-
pie, but it has become indispensably connect
ed with the economy of the age.-an age
which is fast learning to waste nothing, to
make the most of everything. The rag pick
ers Of whom we have spoken, do a compare
lively small part Of the collecting A few
days ago ten tons of rags in one carg6, arrived
in Auburn from South Paris, for Colonel
Emerson. They had been collected by a
South Paris jobber from peddlers, and he had
held them for some time. The greater part
OF the rags Of commerce are collected BY the
carts, which still survive some
of the ancient and deceased institutions of the
Yankee, and without which rural life in New
England would lose one half its excitement.
Some dozen or fifteen of these carts operate
in this county and barter their wares for junk.
They operate in connection with the stove
and tin-ware dealers. The peddlers pay for
mixed rags IA to 2 cents pound, and for col
ored rags about l. cents pound.
THE SURVIVAL OF THE FirTEsT.
The value of rags has increased many fold
by the simple process of sorting them, and in
this process the dealers find their profits
But this process, simple as it is, requires
experience. Go into the shop where it is
done, and you will find the men and women
engaged in it, past middle age-people who
know the various textures Of all kinds of
cloth at sight. The shop is divided into bins.
From a pile of rags the sorter may get
dozen or more different grades. First. there
are the No. whites, or comparatively clean
white rags. Then there are the seconds, -
dirty, gray, or brown cottons. Another grade
is hard wooden, or pieces OF mems wear
cloth that has been pressed or sheared and
dress goods of nearly all kinds. The next
and most valuable grade is the soft woolens,
or old yarn mittens, stockings, etc. Then
comes mum, rous grades-gray and colored
linseys, all wool carpets. cotton carpets,
cotton batting from old puffs, white paper.
MANILA paper, straw paper, old books, old
corsets. satinets, ETC., etc. The rags go into
paper or into shoddv. The soft woolens.
after having been sorted are worth 10 to "a
cents a pound. Colored rags are not worth
nj tba il olt for &1D n tnn
WHERE DO THE RAGS 90 TO!
The ensuing conundrum is. where do the
rags go?" 1t will be no ncws-it is tradi-
tion-to say that part of them go to the pa
per mills. But large part of them go else
where. Perhaps the reader may be wearing
some of those rags on his back to-day. AT
any rate. the newspaper which he Is now read
ing doubtless had its primeval origin in the
rag-bag But the most valuable grades in
the rag mans bins are in few days to be
transformed into webs of "all wool and a
yard wide dress goods and in few days
NAV be fashioned into one of the nobbiest
suits OF the city. The hard and soft woolens,
the linsevs and the satinets of the rag shops
uo 10 the shoddy mills. There is mill at
North Grat. in this State. that makes thous-
auds of wards of shoddy goods. and some Of
them are so fine that they can hardly be told
from all wool goods. The rags are first put
into a picker. and picked as nearly back to
the original fibre as possible. percentage
of new wool is put with the picked rags on
an endless table and it goes into the cards in
this hetero yenous mass. There are several
of these shoddy mills in Maine and hundreds
of them in the New England States. Goods
for mems wear are made largely. Go into
any of our clothing stores. and
Oh the dealer for look at some
shoddv goods and he probably will
NOT hesitate TO show you. II man offers to
cell an oyercost for 81 no sane man will ex-
poet to get anything but shoddy. Goods OF
This class are made almost wholly Of shoddy.
the pickings of old satinet rags, slightly
mingled with the fiyings Of wool. Some OF
chose goods are not woven at ALL but are made