The Durham daily globe. (Durham, N.C.) 1889-1894, 1893-06-15
QUEER TRADES.
Paris Ia "a City here They Greatly Flour
ish and

AhCJ "ACAsAy I4SuE
ish and Abound
Great cities like Paris and London,
abound in queer and odious trades.
such as Dickens and Eugene Sue have
exposed to view in their dismal novels
of London and Paris low life. This
was forty or fifty years ago, since when
the progress of science has added new
occupations for those Bohemians in
rags who are the accompaniment and
equipoise of Bohemians in fine
linen, such as figure in the pages
of the soidisant 'Englishman
on Paris" The one class,
which piques itself on it's distinction
as well as on its vices, presupposes the
other, like the upper and the under
blades of a pair of scissors. l find in a
curious French essay on The Small
Trades of Paris interesting particulars
respecting one class of these vagabonds
those who collect for the Paris labor
atories frogs, snakes, crickets, grass
hoppers, insects of all sorts, bats, cats,
and uch small deer as are needed by
students of natural history. There is
also a demand at the Jardin des Plantes,
the Aquaria, etc, for reptiles, water
bugs and the smallest specimens of
animal life that exist in mud n wa
ter.
These scientific needs nave created an
unscientific class of petty sportsmen,
who are the ''pothunters" of the
museum and neutrality-suspicious.
with one OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
aversion to regular industry and intense
Hove for the vagabond existence on init
mate terms with Mother Nature. At
certain seasons they start ont five or
six times in a month, and are gone four
or five housekeeping under the open
sky at the back of a wall or dyke and
subsisting Of a morsel of dry bread
in a haversack. At other times they
NAV be idle for three months, living on
aims supplied by the professors and
students whom they have served, or by
advances made to them from dealers in
natural history supplies, which they
| expect to repay when the hunting sea-
son opens again.
In winter these gentry often contrlve
to get committed to prison for some
small offense Qike the clients OF Mr.
Andrews at Salem), in order to have
warm shelter and free lunches at the
expense of the public. In this case
> however, they are to be out again II
the opening spring, when the life tina
4 dimly moves in pools and streams be
gins to feel the universal impulse tina
: Lucritius dwe1ls upon, and becomes
active and social once more. One o
! these Partisan savants, known to med
zeal students and professors, IS calle'
= '.Father Savage (Pere Sauvage) TO
want of his true name, which may pos
s sibly be known to the police or to som
s rumseller who supplies him with tn
o strong drink he can not dispense wit
when his sprees come on.
. He is a man of sixty or slXty-hV
years, tanned by the sun and wind an
, bent over with age, but still hearty
like Wordsworth's leech-gatherer. ID
has so much deXterity in his chose
pursuit that he might ave earned
competence by it if he were not ais
one of the worst drunkards OF the Latl
. quarter. He has several specialize
but his most profitable and attractl1
one used to be to catch the four speclt
of bats that frequent Paris-the gre;
horshoe bat, the little horseshoe, tt
murin and the pipistrella. He declar'
that these bats are the prettiest ere
l. lures in the world and the most phllo
~progenitive, nursing their Dumero1
Young with great care, and very user
a1SO-N Y. Recorder.