The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1890-08-31
LES CHIFFONIERS
DE PARIS.
Interesting Glimpses Into a Kind
of High Life Below Stairs.
The Number Of Persons in the French Capital
and Suburbs Who Mansge to Earn
Living by Picking Rags.

Eat is Intended to levy tax OF
HI francs per head on emigrants quitting
liz Flench ports; the costermongers will
have to pay francs year for their
medals; this will keep them from fighting,
in Paris, at least, as they are now doing.
A similar poll-tax will be stuck on rag
pickers, whose situation is attracting just
now much sanitary attention, as well as an
examination of the antecedents of the men,
bers of that guild, whose proverbial recti-
tude and peaceful habits have Of late been
compromised by the stealing into the fold
of several black sheep-in the form of
recidivsts. The chiffoniers, or rag-pckers,
petition to have the roll of the corporation
Investigated and purified, but decidedly OBJ
iect to paying q tax of sous a week. They
are the most noted grumblers in France at
present, since politicians have emigrated to
Timbuctoo and are building castles in the
air respecting the future of France in the
region of Lake Tchad.
Divested of all romance, writes a cor
respondent of the Pittsburg Press the rag
picking fraternity affords interesting
glimpses into kind of high life below
stairs. Note the first members of that or
der you meet. They are models of resigna-
ton, due to the certainty that they cannot
descend lower; besides, those that are
down need fear no fall. Odd, but true; at
the opposite social pole, those that cannot
ascend higher are also resigned. In tho
ewes of the police, under the rubric rag
picker are included not only those who rifle
the household refuse thrown into the street
not at night, rs hitherto. but after
o'clock in the mOrning-but also the 0pcr-
ativeS sorting the pickinSs in the Store
rooms Of the rag-merchants.
There are 35, 900 persons living by rags in
Paris and the suburbs, and there are $50
middlemen and wholesale rag pickerS. OF
the % coo rag pickers per Sc only 10000 are
provided with the requisite brass medal, or
license. The contemplated tax, unlike that
on dogs, will be paid into the national treas
ury, not expended upon local wants, and
will realize an estimated sum of 100000
francs Paris is divided into $50 routes or
sections, and served every morning by as
many large dust-carts drawn by TWO horses.
Each cart contains four cubic yards Of
house and street rubbish, which IS trans
ported into some old gravel-pit in the out
skirts, or shot into barges and conveyed as
manure for riverside farms. An old gravel
pit. exhausted for railroad ballast, of about
sixty acres III area and four miles
OUTSIDE OF PARIS,
Has, within the last century, been filled up
with city SweepinGs, old building rubbish,
locomotive cinders and clinkers, etc. 1t is
now being laid out as site for pretty
Western Railroad will eoncede an untrans-
ferable free second-there is no third-class
ticket to the tenants who take house for
thirty years, at the expiration of which the
tenement becomes their property.
The street rubbish daily carted out of the
city does not include gutter. The latter is
swept into the sewer to be carried into the
Seine the sewers being periodically cleaned
of their silt-and always at night-through
the metal traps in the sidewalks of the
streets. There is special service for
sweeping the great markets, that are
washed and brushed up every three hours,
from opening till closing hours, the sweep
ings being placed in covered metal trucks
till the dust contractors carts arrive III the
evening.
open to foreigners in France-scavengers
and rag pickers Applicants are eligible
for the duties on supplying a name and
giving a nationality. Antecedents are not
pred into, but the applicants are expected
to have at least clean police bill of health.
A great many of the rag-pickers have seen
better days: but it is sheer romance to as
sert that these last social tribes are largely
recruited from swindlins bankers, un-
fr0cked clergymen, wrecked sayants or
ruined professionals. As rule, till Sc
Gently the rag-pickers have had the repnta-
ton for sterling honesty, as evidenced by
the immediate restoration of invaluable
finds in the refuse heaps to their owners
hey 1UlUl u CtSlt III lituScINtS, i've where
few other persons could exist and on food
of questionable origin. Drink is their main
vice, and any fire-water is acceptable pro-
vided it Initiates the palate, warms-that is,
burns-the inside, and produces seeing
double and enthusiastic oblivion. Disease
is as rare among chiffoniers as among
graye-diggers and sewermen. 1t is for the
Berlin Medical Congress to explain this
hygienic paradox.
There are three categories of rag
pickers, the nomadic, or unattached, who
are the lshmaelltes OF the order, they are
provided with sack instead of the back
basket, or hottie, and eschew lantern.
They roam everywhere, act on Moliere's
counsel, seeking their interest wherever it
can be found II is thus that this free
booter comes in contact with
THE SECOND CATEGORY,
The rag picker who, by tacit understand
ing with his fellows, confines his opera
lions to certain streets or section of
street. Category one is viewed as
poacher and courts a poaoher's treatment.
The third category Is the upper crust OF the
profession; he is patrouized by certain
number of house porters and servants, who
keep their refuse contributions for him
alone. He has generally helpmate and
children, who work like bees from ) o'clock
to in the morning; they have generally
donkey and cart to convey to their homes
or sorting Wristbands the mornings pick
ings.
Since 1928 rag-pickers have to apply for
permit to the Project of Police This, when
granted, consists of an oval brass plate, on
which the name Of the bearer and regis
try number are cut. If the individual is
known by a nickname-as is the case gen.
erally-that too, figures on the medal. The
latter is transferable after death-hence the
abuse. The present Project of the Seine,
NJ. Foubelle, entered upon crusade against
the rag pickers. BY his decree landlords
were 10 provide portable dust-bin, into
which tenants were to empty their kitchen
refuse. This bin was to remain in the yard,
and only to be brought ont into the street
when the passing dust-cart bell was heard.
T he carriers would then empty the bin into
the cart.
The object of the reform was To nreynnt