The Grenada gazette. (Grenada, Miss.) 1885-18??, 1885-12-19
WHARF LIFE.
The Strange Homes Of Italians
Under the Dumps"

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\ ant. 1t will surprise even those who
dwell within q few blocks of these city
dumps-as the STRENGTHENING Bureaus
wharves are called-to know that men
Y live in such crowded, unsavory and un-
likely quarters, for the fact is not gen.
orally known. A recent change in the
system of handling the city's refuse has
brought about this peculiar state Of af-
fairs, and as that was slow in bringing
it about the curious homes in question
are among the newest Of what may be
called the curiosities of metropolitan
life. The dumps are platforms ten or
more feet above the flooring of ordinary
piers. An inclined roadway, up which
) the ash-carts are hauled, leads in each
cast to the platform and over the edge
of the platform the loads of ashes and
household refuse are ''dumped' upon
the scows tethered to the wharf below.
Hence the name dump or dumping
station" given to these wharves, Of
which there are fourteen-nine on the
east side and five on the west side.
Only Italians will do the work upon
the scows. Every other sort of human
labor obtainable in the city has been
tried and found wanting. Some would
not do the work and others could not.
The Irishmen, Germans and others
were sickened by the efluvia which
they could not escape during the jour-
news out to sea, where the loads are
shoveled overheard. Other laborers,
poor and desperately in need though
they were, threw down their picks and
declined to make a second days trial
of the work. This was during a strike
two or three years ago, and since then
the city has returned to the former
method of employing italian labor, and
is not likely to obtain any other. 1t is
understood that the city deals with only
one italian, a contractor, who secures
the right to furnish tho labor of his
countrymen by putting in a lower bid
than any one else. The labor here re-
ferred to is that of emptying the scows.
But they have to be trimmed, as the
sailors say, before they are sent to sea;
that is, there must be men to shovel
the refuse evenly on the deck of the
scows as it falls from the ash-carts.
This is also done by Italians, and it is
dirtier and more offensive work than
the other, because the trimmers must
constantly endure a cloud of ashes and
the bad odor of the other waste as well.
For the privilege of supplying these
trimmers an Italian contractor pays
something like $4,000 a year. The
city pays nothing to the men, who are
on the contractors payroll, and who
make his profit for him by picking out
of the mounds of barrel contents all
the riffraff of the city which can be
sold and worked over anew or into
some product of economic science.
1t is these trimmers whose homes the
writer has sketched. To enter one of
these strange habitations the curious
visitor must first climb over a great
hill Of empty fruit, vegetable and fish
tins or cans, must pick his way between
heaps of old iron and piles cf bottles,
among bags of rags and waste paper,
hillocks of bones and strange assort-
ments of glass, leather, metal, and, in
fact, whatever there is that is not ut
tcrly worthless, or what was not de-
stroyed when once used. All day long
these trimmers, each with a basket Of
pail by his side, sort out the odds and
ends that their employer can sell. The
bones are said to bring the most money.
They come back to New York in the
shape of animal charcoal for use in dis
tilleries and sugar refneries, as tooth
brush handles, buttons, paper-cutters
and a thousand-and-one things. The
metal is melted into bars for use again,
the rags and the paper become new
paper and the bottles are cleaned and
used once more. What the delivers are
paid is the contractors secret. What
jewelry, pocket-books, loose coin and
little portable valuables they find are
their gains.
At noon the men quit tho refuse
heaps and eat their luncheons in the
cabins arranged under the dumps.
Some of them have their wives in the
cabins, turning these ill-favored spots
into something more like homes than
the mere bunkers in which the single
men live, eating dry bread and what
ever comes already cooked and sleep
ing either on old bedding, looking as
II it had been rescued from the refuse,
or on rags that certainly have been so
obtained. Where there are women
there are stoves and attempts are made,
with shelves and d cot or two and
plates and knives and even little litho-
graphs, at home-like efforts and COM
fort. In most Of these dumps there
are no women. In others the sleeping
places are mere conveniences, since
the men are reported to have homes
and families in the Italian quar-
ter, to which they sometimes go.
The dumps are whitewashed fire.
quently by these same Italians who
live under them; and the clerk at n
dump said that the Health Board In.