The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1890-08-31

but it killed the means of livelihood of
nearly 80, 600 persons by not affording time
to root among the refuse. Public opinion
sided with the rag-pickers, and parlia-
mentary inquiry toned down the prefectoral
law, while the Project himself was rewarded
by having every box or vessel containing
any species of refuse baptized "Poubelle,"
just as the humane DR.. Guillotin's heart
was broken by calling the. famous machine
after him, though he only recommended it
as the most humane and expeditions mode
OF capital punishment, quicker, as we now
know, than the ''electrOcution" of Harold
Brown, Edison and Petersen, which has
required more than five minutes in anything
but an easy armchair" to charge the con-
demned Kemmler with electricity, to ere
mate him alive! Vive the guillotine or the
Berry six feet dropi
1t is only within the last half century
that rag-picking has become a lucrative
employment, as TX to francs per day can
be earned at the work. Up to 1888 the chif-
fonier depended for his gains upon
THE LINEN RAGS HE COLLECTED,
And which he sold to the paper-maker. In
that year peasant, while amusing himself
unraveling an old worsted stocking, con-
tinued also to unroll its thread; next he
carded this thread between his fingers into
wool. He had discovered "shoddy," which
has resulted in reducing the price of wool
ems about two-thirds. At the present mo-
ment an unmiXed wooden can he produced
as low as 10 sous per yard Unravelipg and
carding machinery soon took up the discoy-
cry. and WOODEN rags, which IN 1888 were
only employed as manure, at from So to 20
sous per cWt., now fetch six times That
price, while good flannel rags will bring as
high as sous per pound.
The rag oickers have current price list
of their own published weekly, which gives
the quotations at home and abroad of $50
different classes of materials crooked up by
them, not only of rags, but of papers, old
metal glass, etc. 1t has been calculated,
for this age Of figures stops at nothing, that
every inhabitant of France throws away
ten pounds of filthy rags of unrighteous-
ness annually; that, on population of 49,
00O, 900, is n respectable contribution to the
paper aud shoddy mills. But as Senator Jules
Simon asserts, France by her decreasing
population is slowly disappearing, it is to
such breeding races as the Anglo-Saxon,
the Muscovte and the Teuton that the
world must henceforth look for its raw ma
terials in question.
To what base uses may we come, Hora-
ito. The old trousers of the French
soldiers are shoddied and then made into
fezzes for true believers of Asia Minor; old
epaulets and bell-ropes serve to stuff sofas
and chairs for the use of kings and peas
ants; old corks become new shoppers for
ink lubricants or are utilized for old bot
ties, into which even new wine is put; card
board is pulped into lacquer ware and sold
as the direct product of the land Of
the rising sun; sardine-boXes are converted
into as many militaires as the united peace
armies Of Europe; old crusts are roasted
and then ground to powder hams when not
worked up to fatten fowls. In art, as in
nature, nothing is lost.
A rag-picker lives in shanty hut, built
of old board, on No Mans Land. One sou
per day is the average rent. a tenant in
debt is never elected; four men simply
lift up the house. carry it away, and leave
Carthage.