The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1885-08-26
MONEY AT THE DUMPS.
a Snug Fortune Raked Each Year Out of
Heaps of Refuse.

Heaps of Refuse.
Huge wire baskets with hosting
gear of iron chains have been rigged at
all of the fourteen dumps on the North
and East rivers, and Italians NAV be
seen every day soaking rags in the
baskets. The idea of the unique machine
was borrowed from the dog pound
The rig is fixed upon the end of the
pier. When the basket is full it is let
down into the water, and the tide is
left to do the washing. Every pound
of dirt washed out of the rags repre-
sents the loss of cent and quarter,
the average price of rags at wholesale,
and many dollar is hopelessly sunk
in the river that way. The board of
health and Maj. Bullard. chief of the
sanitary police, who got up the wash
ing business, are held responsible for
this outrage.
The ash-barrels of the city, before
their contents are finally dumped into
the sea, are made to yield quite 5000
a year to nearly one hundred Italians
who handle the refuse at the dumps.
This is exclusive of the picking in
the streets, which still goes on in spite
of police prohibition. The city gets its
share of the profit. The work of trim
ming the scows. or in other words, of
packing the dirt evenly before they are
sent out to sea, is sold by the city to
one Tom Roach for S120 a week.
Roach hires the privilege of sorting
over the refuse as the cart dumps their
loads, and of picking out what is worth
having. He is, however. merely the
middleman, and Jose Cicarilla, an
Italian, is the real contractor. He
pays to Roach, or his equivalent,
bonus of 500 a week for his contract,
and hires a sufficient number of his
countrymen at from S5 to 81 week to
do the work. At present his staff en-
braces ninety-four men, whose duty
it is to sort over and trim daily a scow-
load of refuse at each dump, exclusive
of the waste-paper gatherers, who form
sort of skirmishing line at the dumps,
helping a little, and receiving pit
| tance of 81 or 81 SO week from the
sub-contractor, and all the waste paper
| they can find. The aggregate amount
of money paid to this army of scaven-
gers in the course of the year by their
boss is between $50, 900 and $40, 900.
Some of them live under the dumps,
| lor and misery.
Rags and bones are the principal
| sources of revenue of the ash-heaps.
| Some rags are much more valuable
| than others, but, taken as a whole,
they bring 1t cents pound. The loss
| in weight is caused by the new order
to wash them before they are packed
in bags and sent to the iunkshops, and
l,a.
needed to handle the baskets are more
than made up for by the greater yield
since the police began their systematic
raid on the ash-barrel ragpickers.
Though books are piled slightly, yet in
every street change has already been
worked. Seventy five or eighty rag
pickers have been locked up in station
cells for disobeying the law. and in
Little Italy it is beginning to be under
stood that the health officers mean
| business.
Bones, that stand next upon the list
and are scrupulously saved by the del
vers, bring 60 cents barrel as mater
ial for bone-black, knife-handles, and
buttons. They are exported in close
wagons, principally to Crow Hill,-
across the river, where the charcoal
factories are. Whole bottles are quoted
at 70 cents barrel and broken clear
glass at a quarter a barrel. Until
recently tin cans were an important
source of revenue, at the rate of Sc or
81 a big load, the supply being unlimi-
ted. But now they are drug in the
market, and are left to the stale beer
workers. They have had their day.
| The East-sider, present resident of
| First avenue, who first saw visions of
wealth in the tin and solder of empty
preserve cans realized his dream. He
has retired with a snug fortune. The
| waste paper, too, is despised by the
trimmers, and is left to the skirmishers,
who sell it for what they can get.
Just now is Cicarilla's harvest time.
At moving-time and when people pre-
pare to 90 to the country or are COM
ing back, lots of things go into the ash
barrel that have no value to the owner,
but help to make trade brisk for the
boss trimmer. Old boots, passable
hoop-skirts, and thousand odds and
ends, all of use, turn up at the dumps
then with heaps of rags. Sometimes
lost yaluables turn up, or silver spoons
thrown into the ash-barrel with the
kitchen refuse by careless servants.
Once a live baby was dumped on a
cart, the heartless mother having
thrown it into barrel, and covered it
with refuse; but it found its breath be-
fore the dump was reached, and
frightened the driver with its unex-
pected howls.
How much Cicarilla makes by his
bargain he does not tell. When the
question is put he shrugs his shoulders
and complains of hard times. He lives
in much better style than the mass of
his countrymen on the second floor of
a good-class Bayard street tenement.
When his scows are trimmed other
gangs of Italians. whom he hires for
the city. go out to sea in them, and
dump their contents. Capitalists have
made propositions now and then to do
the city's STRENGTHENING. take the re-
fuse out in the bay, build an island of
it, and store and utilize it all there, but
only on condition that the city shall
give them long contract, and pay
handsomely for having the job taken
off its hands, as it does in the matter of
removing offal and dead animals from
the street. The propositions have never
been made in practical form.-Nec
York Sun.
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