The Dickinson press., 1890-01-11
QUEER TRADES IN PARIS.
ODD CRAFTS THAT SURPRISE THE
YANKEE GLOBE TRoTTER.

ODD CRAFTS THAT SURPRISE THE
YANKEE GLOBE TRoTTER.
Ingenious Methods Of Making the Old
Gobbler Look Young-One Woman Who
Has La q Fortune Out of Ants Eggs.
Big Stories About Partisan Cats.
There are many queer trades in Paris.
Ono of the oldest is that of "painter of
turkeys legs" This artist is known only
to the poultry dealing fraternity and is a
highly useful member of the community.
BY his artistic skill he enables the trader
to palm off q bird of patriarchal age,
with a certain vague romance as to the
date of its decease, upon q misguided
housewife, or even upon an experienced
buyer, who has learned to judge a tur-
key after the manner of cookery book
writers. Turkeys when freshly killed
have shiny black legs and claws, but as
the day of their death becomes more or
less a matter of ancient history their
lower extremities assume a slaty, dingy
gray color. Old turkeys, too, have long
claws and horny looking beaks, which
the ingenious artist pares and varnishes.
The artist goes round to his customers
three or four times a week, paints the
feet of the birds with his solution (Which
was sold as a trade secret to the present
owner for e4O), carefully pares the nails
and beak, and there you have a turkey
that will fetch half as much again. 1t
is only during the desperate struggle with
the ancient beast that ensues at dinner
time that you realize how fraudulent are
its pretensions to juvenility.
THE CAT INDUSTRY.
"Cat killers" are not numerous, but the
few who monopolize the trade make a
great deal of money out of it. They
walk through Paris about midnight with
a sack and acouple of terriers, and when
they catch sight of a stray puss off go
the dogs, who seldom return to their
master without their prize. Their skins
are sold to furriers and their flesh to the
keepers of eating houses in the suburbs,
where "rabbit stew" is a favorite dish.
But for stewed rabbit one likes to be sat
isfied that a bunny has been sacrificed,
so the workmen who delight in this
dainty require to gee a rabbits head rs a
proof of the bona ides of the dish. This
would puzzle an ordinary individual, but
the scat killer" is a genius and a French
man, and is not SO easily disposed of.
He also deals in rabbit skins, and has
an arrangement with the cooks in the
ncighborhood to let him have the heads
at the same time as the skins of the rab-
bits for his penny or two. By this in
genious method he is enabled to send out
to his customers two or three cats
bodies, minus the tails, with each rab-
bits head, and one moro dainty dish is
added to the Partisan menu and eight or
ten shillings to the we'll filled purse of
the exterminator of the feline race. The
French capital harbors the largest num-
Der of cats of any city in the world in
proportion to its size. Whole colonies of
them arc to be found in the vicinity of
the markets, where they feed on broken
victuals and make incessant war on the
rats.
At the Halles Centrales their numbers
have increased so rapidly of late that q
portion of them had to be destroyed, as
they roamed about in bands like wild
beasts, and were beginning to be dam
gerous. Duprez, the well known tenor
singer, has earned the title of LIE pere
DIES chats, for he daily feeds hundreds of
these animals at his own expense. The
prefecture de police likewise entertains
a large colony of cats which are placed
under the care of an old woman of 70,
who supplies them with daily rations of
meat and milk.
CANT FARMERS"
can't farmers" though only number
ing half a dozen or so in Paris, are by no
means to be overlooked in our study of
odd trades. One, for instance, r%ejoiccs
in the name of Mile. Blanche. She is
not prepossessing in appearance. Her
skin looks like dried pippins, and is
tanned like crocodile hide. She has
leather gauntlets and trousers, a regular
coat of armor, but Notwithstanding this
she is knawed and bitten by her migrate
full stock to such an extent that she is
perfectly hideous. She sleeps in the
middle of the sacks of ants, and her
epidermis has become so insensible to
the bites of those insects that she SUM
bers soundly and sweetly while hundreds
of them are endeavoring to extract a
meal from her thick skin.
She was some time ago compelled to
remove her quarters to a spot just out
side Paris, because the neighbors not
un%reasonably objected to the stray men,
bers of her farm skirmishing on their
own account in the pantries of the ad-
joining houses. Mile. Blanche supplies
breeders and keepers of %pheasants, the
geological gardens, aquariums and large
bird dealers with ants eggs and receives
never less than ten large flour sacks of
ants a day from Germany and elsewhere.
By keeping them in a great heat and
feeding them we'll they are induced to
lay a vast quantity Of eggs. 1t is inter-
esting to record that Mile. Blanche is by
this time possessed of a handsome
fortune.
Horsef1esh is still eaten by the Paris
ians, much as such a statement may
horrify my readers across the sea. At
least a thousand horses are killed here
every year to supply this meat to the
capital. About thirty shops sell nothing
but horse, mule and donkey's flesh.
Many of them have over their doors
boucherie hippique, and do a rushing
trade among the working population,
who have no foolish scruples about eau
ing portions of what is certainly the
cleanest of animals. 1t is no secret that
the major part Of the "beefsteaks' at
the restaurants as we'll as nine-tenths of
the sausages come from defunct gee-gees.
The thin fattened sausages from the
north of France are made from horse
flesh, and the Lyons sausages from the
meat Of the docile donkey.-Cor. Phila
delphia Times.
An Incentive to Piety.
Minister Ito bad boy)-Johnny, 20,
should be good-like my little Tommy
Johnny-Hed don't daIe be anything els
you've got so many slippers.-Epoch