The San Saba news. [volume] (San Saba, Tex.) 1873-1966, 1890-02-14
RAGPICKERS.
HOW 10000 MEN AND WOMEN
EARN 4 LIVING IN PARIS.
Astonishing Facts About These
Strange seavehgers OF the Streets
of the French CapitaI-Their
Organization and Work.

Last year, says Mrs. Frank Leslie in
letter from Paris to the New York World
NJ. Rouff, a dealer in diamonds, lost
fine large pearl, weighing 125 grains ant
valued at $4,000. He Immediately pu
posters up on all the walls of Paris offer
ing a handsome reward for its recovery
Several weeks elapsed when a poo
woman called on the Commissary Of Pc
lice in the Rue Montmartre and handed
the lost pearl to that official. Her name
was Gautier. She was a chiffonniere, Oh
female ragpicker, by trade, and had
found the pearl in a heap Of rubbish in
the Rue Laffitte. She lived in a small
wooden shanty in the Rue du Ruisseau, a
poorly tenanted street belonging to a
quarter known as Les Grandes Carriers
so named from the ''large quarries" on
the northern slopes of MontElartre, where
the city formerly got much of its fine
limestone for building.
The new law that forbids housekeepers
placing their rubbish in the streets over
night has been sad blow to the corpora
ton to which this poor honest woman
belongs. Some compensation has, it is
true been offered them by the tolerance
of the police; who close their eyes to the
Infringement of the regulations in the
narrow streets which are lined with shops
and warehouses. They have each their
own concierge, who permits them to
forage at daybreak among the rubbish
brought down by the servants from up
stairs.
They have a longer days work now.
Formerly they started out at ten at night,
and at four or five in the morning, when
the carts made their rounds, they had
disappeared from the streets. Now they
must remain until the scavengers appear
on the scene, or at least until the last
boxes Of rubbish have been emptied into
the common bin placed on the edge of
the curb by each concierge.
They have the work of sorting to do
when they get back from their early
morning task of collecting the refuse.
Some sell it to a boss, or trieur (sorter),
as he is called, who stays at home and
docs nothing else. He sits in his room
like a gentleman, and there quietly as
sembles, examines aud separates the diff
ferent articles picked up by his workpeo-
pie. He then sells the material to buy
ers Of various sorts.
The business is anything but lucra-
tive one. Parisians, however, throw
away every year more than 500, 900 tons
of stuff, which the ragpickers collect and
sell for upward of $4,000, 600 francs,
or nearly S., 600, 600. The daily returns
amount in all to more than 20, 600 francs
(S14, 000), but there are 40, 600 men and
women to share the sum between them,
so that each gets an average of one franc
seventy-fve confines, or less than thirty
five cents. Two hundred pounds of
waste paper cannot be sold for more than
a couple Of francs, wooden rags are only
worth five cents pound, cotton three
cents, and bones at best fetch one franc
confines, or thirty seven cents
per hundredweight.
A man working steady all night-for
they still ply their trade on a small scale,
despite the edicts of the Prefect-may
earn, If he has fair amount of good
fortune, from forty to sixty cents, but
not more. A silver spoon does OCCASION
ally turn up in the rubbish, but a pearl
of purest orient hue-well, so to speak,
never. Besides, every member of the
Of ragpicksrs is bound under
severe penalties to deposit any valuables
he may find at the nearest police Office
Each has a card or ticket with number
inscribed, and number corresponding
with that on the card is fastened to the
hottie or basket. Ragpickers, moreover,
have always been noted for their industry
and honesty.
There are no classes or categories
lmong the ragpickers, as some pretend.
There are only the good and the bad. The
real chiffonnier is readily recognized by
.he adroitness with which, while only
slightly STOPPING, he transfxes cork or
my bit of rag or paper and drops it into
he basket at his shoulders. 1t requires
Years of patient practice to do the thing
ieatly. He eontemns imitators people
who would lain pass themselves off for
he genuine article. There are plenty of
uch shams who wear the blue blouse and
20 about with the basket, but they are
10 members of the corporation. They
re mere hide-venders. Catsl1ins still |
ind purchasers, and the number Of rab-
tits eaten at cheap restaurants and water
ide resorts enables these prowling frauds |
o dispose of the bodies of their victims. /