The Van Buren press., 1893-11-11
A cITY's WASTE.
1t Gives q Living to Hundreds Of Poor
People.

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 emissaries of the garbage con-
tractors are abroad, there goes forth
from that part Of the city known az
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 meme
ber provided with push-cart, sack
and bucket, spreads itself like huge
octopus over the city, quietly sapping
IN existence from the cast-of and offal.
They are the piclsers,sthe scavengers,
who in the early morning and forenoon
can be seen on the street incumbered
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 about 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 a half for his
"mixed."
For the bones he receives half cent
per pound and for the bottles twenty
five cents to one dollar per hundred,
according to size. He next goes to the
Secondhand" man, who will 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 labor, and If he had had good
day he has about severity-five cents as
q reward for his trouble, though it 10
oftener fifty cents and not infrequently
twenty-five or thirty cents. OF this
amount part goes for the household ex-
penses, and always some of 1t 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 10
hard to get, as at present, when so
many laborers are out of work, mum.
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, tho
demand for rags and paper has been
greatly diminished, and where the
dealers do not refuse to buy the rags
at all the prices have been 80 reduced
as to make poor Guiseppi at times des-
perate.
The abode Of the picker Is as humble
found in some obscure, dirty, foul
smelling courts leading off one Of the
small back streets, where in the narrow
precincts Of a three-room house he
keeps his already large and ever
increasing family, whose only knowl.
edge of the great city around them 10
cleaned from the dirty pack he brings
in each day. The children, as o rule,
are fat and healthy, although 1t is diff
ing can exist in the filth and squalor
that form the chief characteristic OF
his home, and they impatiently wait
for the return Of the father, who il
sure to bring some trinket or toy that
has been discarded by some more for
tunate little one and consigned to the
garbage box. The court in which the
picker lives usually contains besidea
the dwelling houses rag-buyer's shop
where the rags and other offal are
stored, accumulating for weeks before
shipment and sending out the most dis
gusting odors, sickening to stranger,
but which has long ceased to annoy
occupants of the court. 1t Is hard to
to realize that the filth here collected
can ever be of use other than for en-.
riching the soil, yet the white rags are
sent to the paper-maker, who returns
them to us neatly packed in boxes the
delicate writing-paper Of commerces
the colored rags 20 to the shoddy dealer
who spins them into the shoddy that
enters SO largely into our 'all-wool."
But the bones, fertilizer sure-no,
not all of them, the sugar retiner buys
some of them, and after carefully boil
ing, bleaching and grinding them, uses
them to turn brown sugar into white.
Old paper is used for making binders'
board, and old rubbers, like the iron.
are melted over, and used for the samo
purpose indefinitely.
The picker is unprogressive as rule,
and sticks to his push-cart until he
makes money enough to 20 back to
sunny Italy, or grows old in the BUSH
ness, and is cared for by his children.
However, this rule has its EXCEPTIONS
In some cases the push-cart is succeeded
by horse and wagon, or else he takes
a store and becomes dealer, his former
experiences making him q very cute
buyer.
Having thus risen, he takes larger
house, and commands greater degree
of respect from his fellows Notwith-
standing this, however, his wife goes
barefooted, his children dirty and
uon1ao<o1 Ho ;c hxy ,,o<,,vo n v.so1~o~