Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1888-10-10
DEALERS IN OLD JUNK.
Uses To Which All Waste Material
Is Applied.

The waste OF large city gives rise
10 marvellous industries. How to utll-
ize every scrap of paper, every piece of
tvlne, rope or old boot and sheet of
mouldy paper, is the occupation of TO-
600 people depending on this humble
but remunerative employment
There are, according to the latest
statistics. upward of 200 junk shops
which give employment to 11,000 per
sons. The modus operandi of each is
as varied as the personality OF the
propueJors- In some, carts are en-
ployed to travel from door TO door and
collect the refuse, while others employ
the ordinary bag and stout stick IN
the collection of garbage to be carried
to headquarters. IN some or the larger
shops as many as eighty men are en-
pioyed in collecting and sorting out the
various articles which find their way
into these places.
In a well regulated junk shop bust
ness methods are as systematic as civil
service rules. Everything within its
walls from the ceiling to the cellar has
its own fixed place White paper No.
i, which comprises the trimmings and
clippings of book paper, sells at three
cents per pound. The No. 2 pattern,
which is composed of circulars and
spoiled sheets. fetches from two to two
and one half cents, and book covers a
half cent per pouni.
1t may be asked to what use the
junkware is converted? Some valua bic
old garments that find their way here
are unseamed and ripped open and sold
at the rate OF fifteen cents per pound
to manufacturers of shoddy. There are
at present two large iron yards where
scrap IRON, which Is purchased at half
cent per pound, is melted and made
into light sheet iron, afterward sold to
telegraph wire manufacturers. Broken
stoves, which are excellent material
for wire, sell at five cents pound,
Old bottles are washed out and re-
sold to the trade as new. Old hats are
stripped of and reopened. The East
Side manufacturer who purchases hats
originally from the junkman for ten
cents resells them in reiuvenated shape
for 81 TO 81. Old shoes which sell for
dime are resold to shoemakers, who
use them in making up new ones, to
sell at 81 pair. Railroad tickets after
serving their particular purpose. being
mutilated, cannot be used again. They
are sold to the juLkman for cent a
pound. Old corsets sell at three cents a
of white paper. In short there is
scarcely a remnant or fragment of any
thing imaginable which they cannot
use.
The majority of iunkmen are or Irish
birth or extraction, though not a few
Germans have lately fallen into the
business. Italians, who are mostly un-
licensed ragplckers, form a colony by
themselves. They collect the garbage
from dumps aud ash barrels, which
their more wealthy and high toned
brothers-in-arms would refuse to
s.oIcil- This dirty stuff must be
washed, and on account of this many
respectable junk dealers refuse to buy
it. They also pick cinders, bones and
other refuse, The cinders are sold for
coal 10 the not over particular neigh
borhocd cds, and the other stuff to whole
sale italian junk dealers, who wash It
preparatory TO its shipment to the
rendering establishments,
The Germans, who reside on Eighth
and Tenth avenues, between SIxtieth
and Eightieth streets, employ dogcarts.
They collect coal, cabbage leaves, or
any other species Of waste, which they
use principally as food for the ducks
and geese which they keep in large
numbers. Cabbage leaves and lard
drIppings fatten them sufficiently for
their purpose. The Irish junkmen who
comprise by far the largest, as well as
the wealthiest and most aristocratic
! class, reside on Greenwich and Four
teenth street, near avenue A. One of
these, who may be daily seen in tat
tered clothing behind a push cart,
owns two brown stone houses IN Har-
lem, and yet he lives in miserable lit
tie hovel whose floors never knew the
touch or a carpet.