The Opelousas courier., 1884-10-11
PROCURING DAILY BREAD
Some Odd Callings and Queer
Occupations.
Gaining a Livelihood by Methods poth
Strange and Disagreeable.

and some Of them as curious. as the
people themselves. 1t is mostly IN
large and crowded cities that these odd
callingA queer occupations, not cata-
logued in the list of trades, much less
professions, are found. Not long
since there was an account going the
rounds, of a young butcher, who, thrown
out of a job, and not getting another
conceived the idea of setting up as a
cat butcher. There were a number OF
ladies and families who kept pet cats,
and he concluded, as they gave a dime
or a quarter a week for choice titblts
of raw meat for pet 'Tabby," that he
would set up in business, and now
drives a thriving business in New
York, supplying meat for as many as
| three or four hundred valued felines.
In the Faubourg st. German,
Paris, resides ala1y whose business is
to breed ants and maggots. She matches
led, brown and black ones, and earnsa
by no means scant livelihood by sell
ing them to pheasant preservers. An
other Partisan gets his living by hatch
ing maggots; he buys off the clli1foniers
or Vrag-pickers, who sell him their
rotten meat They are Matched in tin
boxes, and sold as food for nightingales;
and a third raises worms for those
piscatorially disposed. He owns a
large pit at Montmartre, and every day
his employees bring him in a fresh
stock, for which he pays from five to
ten pence a pound. They find ready
sale to the followers of 1zaak Walton
for triple and quadruple this sum, and
he ~reioices in an income of $500 a
year.
In England a MI. Wells. who made
fishing tackle at Nottingham, the IA
nous headquarters for lace, started a
pond or water farm where he could
raise a constant supply of bait for his
customers. Lob-Worms, cockspurs,
ring-tailed brandlings and other choice
d~elicacies supposed to delight and lure
the dainty fish are among his stock in
trade. Men and boys go out and catch
worms in the night, in the meadows,
pastures and lowlands. Sometimes
when the weather is warm and moist
as many as from two to six thousand
are caught. As soon as brought in
they are placed in properly selected
moss to scour until they become a
little more tough in the skin, freshly
caught worms being too tender for the
angler to handle. A worm fit for bait
should be as tough IS India rubber.
When they are ready for the market it
is no difficult matter to put them in
moss, and being packed in canvas bags
they are ready for the market.
Fattening geese for pate de fois gras
is another odd calling. yet a lucrative
one. The geese are confined in dark
cellars, and the food stuffed down
their Threats, until, like Jack Falstaf,
they grow SO fat they cannot stand.
Then, when killed, their fat livers, rich
to richness itself, find ready sales, and
tickle epicurean palates.
In New York city alone are 1000
girls daily engaged in artificial flower
and wall paper manufacture. The
arsenic, when green is used, as in arti-
fetal flowers to initiate leaves, is ex
tremely dangerous. Floating particles
of the deadly poison float about in the
atmosphere, and though sometimes
masks are worn over the nostrils and
mouth, yet the moist skin absorbs it
In its pores and the particles find lodg-
ment in the clothes of the operative.
The quantity Of arsenic used is incred-
ible. The medical officer of the privy
council states that from five to seven
h~undredton are made inEngland annu-
ally, and an English chemist found ten
pure grains In a bunch of artificial
flowers worn by a lady in her hat
enough to poison twenty people.
The making of matches is another
dangerous trade. The operatives
work in close rooms, and are constant
" exposed to the deadly fumes Of
phosphorus. The peculiar disease in
duced is necrosis Of the maxillary
bones. and not unfrequently jaws have
been removed from those long employ
ed in these factories.
The danger to those who work in
white lead factories is well known
The poison affects people partly
through inhalation and through the
agency Of the skin. Paralysis ensues
when the work is discontinued.
The trades where mercury is used,
such as silvering Of looking-glasses
and dressing Of furs. are all dangerous,
Is large quantities Of mercury are
used. The operatives soon become
salivated. e~xpectorating continually,
and finally dying Of incurable ulcers.
Truthfully has a W%ellknoWn American
written: "0ut of hard and dry neces-