The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-11-10
- CiTY'S WASTE.
It Gives Living TO Hundreds Of Poor
People.

It Gives Living TO Hundreds of Poor
People.
Long ere the first rays OF the coming
sun have lit up the eastern horizon.
while the city still slumbers, and be-
fore the emlssaries of the garbage con-
tractors are abroad. there goes forth
from that part of the city known as
Little Italy" small army of Italians.
whose daily bread is wrung from the
refuse that another condition of society
has declared unfit for further use.
Day after day this horde. each mem
Der provided with push-cart. sack
and bucket, spreads itself like huge
octopus over the city. quietly sapping
an existence from the cast-off and offal.
They are the picSers. the scavengers,
who in the early morning and forenoon
can be seen on the street incumbersd
by large sack stopping here and
there to examine the contents of the
family slop box and cleaning there
from the bones. rags, old shoes. old
hats, rubbers. bottles, paper, or what
ever else that can in any shape be used
again. Slowly he trudges along from
box to barrel until the sack is filed,
when he returns to the cart, which has
been left with others in some back
street, where the bag is emptied to
make ready for another tour of the
neighboring street. After several of
these trips the cart is loaded and he
starts for home.
This usually happens bout 10 o clock.
and though he has been up since
a. m., his work is by no means finished.
He must now sort out the filthy mass,
clean and dry the rags, scrape the
tainted meat from the bones, wash the
bottles brush Off the old hats and
shoes, if he has been fortunate to find
any, and, like any other merchant, put
his goods into salable shape.
This done, the stock is again loaded
and he starts for the rag dealer. who
gives him two cents per pound for his
white rags and one and half for his
linked"
For the bones he receives half cent
per pound and for the bottles twenty
five cents to one dollar per hundred,
according to size. lie next goes to the
secondhand man. who viii give five
cents for an old shoe or ten cents for
hat, and SO on until the whole is dis
posed of.
When this is accomplished 'Gui- |
seppi" has put in about eighteen hours !
of solid la Dor. and if he had had good !
day he has about seventy-five cents as
a reward for his trouble. though it is
f% r., I'd s,s -
twenty-five or thirty cents OF this
amount part goes for the household ex
penses, and always some OF it to an
Italian savings bank. The poor pay he
receives for his efforts is not the only
thing he has to mar his earthly happi-
ness: there are times when material is
hard to get, as at present, when so
many laborers are out of work, num-
bers of them having joined the army OF
cart pushers in their daily scramble for
slop.
Again, on account OF the closing Of
large mills all over the country. the /
demand for rags and paper has been |
greatly diminished and where the |
dealers do not refuse TO buy the rags |
a
as to make poor Guiseppi at times des- |
perate.
The abode Of the picker is as hum bic
as his calling, and is almost invariably (
found in some obscure, dirty, foul |
smelling courts leading off one of the /
small back streets. where in the narrow |
precincts OF three-room house he |
81,
increasing family, whose only knowl-
edge of the great city around them is |
CLEANED from the dirty pack he brings /
in each day. The children, as a rule,
are fat ard healthy, although it is diff
cult 10 understand how any human be-
ing can exist in the filth and soualor
that form the chief characteristic of /
bis home, and they impaticntIy wait
for the return OF the father. who is
Iure to bring some trinket or toy that
aas been discarded by some more for
tunate little one and consigned TO the
garbage box. The court in which tho
picker lives usually contains besides
he dwelling houses rag-buyer shop,
where the rags and other offal are
'hipment and sending out the most dis
yusting odors, siekening 20 a stranger,
put which has long ceased 90 annoy
Of the court II is hard 20
o realize that the fifth here collected
AN ever be o. use other than for en-
'iching the soil, yet the white rags are
ent 10 the paper-rnsker who returns
hem to rs neatly packed in boxes. the
Ielicate writing paper OF commerce.
ne colored rags 20 to the shoGdy dealer
Who spins them into the sfosidv that
nters 50 largely into our '-all-wool -
Bat the bones, fertilizer sure-no.
iot al Of them, the sugar rcfiner buys
ONE o. them, and after carefully boil
M. bleaching and grinding them, uses
hem 10 turn brown sugar into white.
I'd paper - used for making binders /
-oarsi, and Old rubbers. like the iron.
re melted over. and used Tor the same I
purpose indefinitely.
The picker i Enprogresssve a. a rule.
nd sticks 70 his push-cart until be