Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1891-08-28
BRITISH WASTE PAPER.
What Becomes of tho Government Waste
Paper.

Paper.
The waste paper branch of the bust
ness at Her Majesty's stationer Office 10
q very important one, says the London
Daily Ne1us. 1t is situated in Earl
walk from the main establishment. In
the good old days waste paper went as
the perks" of Government officers.
The more they sold tho fatter they grew,
and the sturdier, we may be sure, they
stood up for the Queen and Constitu-
ton, and everything that was staid and
respectable and conservative. The best
of it was that it often happened that the
very men who grew fat on waste paper
had the ordering of the stock, and the
more they ordered the greater were the
perks" of course. It was delightful
arrangement, but it was too good to be
permanent, and in 1852 it was ordered
that all waste and unserviceable papers,
pens. old directories and other publ
cations, and old and useless and worn
out stores of every kind should be re-
turned to the Stationery Office, and lat
terly, therefore, there has been one
stream of new stationery from West
minister to all the Government offices in
the kingdom, and return current of
used-up material. It pours in in huge
van-loads to the establishment in Earl
street, where premises, formerly in the
occupation of marble mason, have
been converted into busy scene of in
dustry in unpacking, sorting, cutting
up, repacking and despatching to the
paper mills, that may be witnessed
all the year round. Till some
years ago papermakers contracted
for the waste paper here, and en-
tered inSo bond to destroy it forth
with. This proved to be unsatisfactory
and there seemed to be no sufficient se-
curity against the leaking out of infor-
nation that ought to be private and con-
hdential. For some time public waste
paper was sent to one or two of the pris-
ons in London, to be torn up and sorted
by the prisoners. This was not very
successful either, and five years ago the
Earl street premises were taken, and
everything now goes there. Vans run
into the yard with their paper and
books stuffed into gunny bags, which
are hauled on up to top floor and
turned out upon tables, the tops of
which consist mainly of iron gratings.
Young women stand at these tables and
sort out the paper into ten classes.
Much of the stuff is very dusty, and the
table tops are grated, so that as the
paper Is tossed about the dust may fall
down below. Once a fortnight the
screen round underneath the table is
removed and the accumulated dust
cleared out. The sorted papers are
thrown into different hoppers and are
shot down to the floor below, where
there is a tremendous guillotine cut
ting machine, driven by a gas engine.
All sorts of secrets and confidential
communications are here chopped up so
far as to render them unintelligible,
and then they are packed up for dis
patch to the mills, when purchasers
come forward with satisfactory offers.
Much of the waste is removed back into
gunny bags, which are suspended from
hooks in the ceiling, and may be RAM
med full with sort of herculean club
| which some of the damsels employ for
the purpose, but most of them appar-
emily prefer to get into the bags and
dance up to the top as their companions
keep feeding in the waste.
| Cheap Lead Pencils.
People who use great number of
lead pencils find that it is economical
to buy them from the wagons in the
streets, and often wonder how the street
men can sell them so cheap. Pencils
which can be had FROM the wagons at q
cost of 25 cents q dozen, cannot be
bought in stationary stores for twice
that amount. In every regard these
pencils, which are sold so cheap, are as
good as the more expensive grades.
They can be had in any quality, from
the softest to the hardest.
While there are usually great piles of
them on the wagons which look like
showroom stock, there are also gener-
ally dozens of packages carefully done
up in the original wrappers. The
secret of the ability of the street men
to sell the pencils so cheap is, that they
were made for advertising purposes.
Hundreds Of reputable firms have these
peucils made in large quantities with
their names imprinted upon them.
They then sell them at the cost price to
the street men, who find that they can
retail them at small profit and still
make money.
These pencils are in every respect
identical with those which sell at q
much higher price-save that they have
the name printed upon them. This
mode Of advertising is certainly profta-
BILE to those who engage in it, or else
they would not continue to have the
pencils made, and at the same time it is
great boon to any man who has to use
a large number Of lead pencils, mas
much as he can buy pencil on the
wagon for cents that would cost him
in the stationary store 5 ut least. The
result of this is marked decrease in
the sale of the higher priced pencils.
In Russia Women Gamble.
In no other part of the world has
gambling developed to such an extern
as in Russia. Like an epidemic it has
seized upon the higher classes of society
chiefly the nobility and persons o
leisure, who stake and lose large fortune!
on games of chance, utterly regardless.
of consequences, which are often sad in
deed. Every elegantly appointed home
has its billiard and card rooms, and il
the latter as MANY az fifteen tables ma,