Kansas City daily journal. [volume] (Kansas City, Mo.) 1892-1897, 1895-01-24
ODD SOURCES OF PROFIT.
SOME or rHE QUEER INDUSTRIES BY
wHICU PEOPLE LIVE.
One Of Them Is Sang" Digging to supply
the Chinese with the Elixir of Life
Mining Cedar Wood From the
Earth-Tbc Old Cork
Man.

rlous parts of this great country. Some
times such an occupation has to do with
products Indigenous to the soil, again IL
grows out of changes wrought by time and
the forces Of nature, while infrcquently
some individual is sharp enough to make
an excellent living out of the unrecognized
wastefulness Of others.
The most recent unique instance Of the
latter method OF making ones fortune was
located In South Jersey. a man who had
been poor as his neighbors began to be
notiCeably prosperous In time his ac-
quaintanCes began to connect his increased
fortune with his regular disappearance
from town with n huge and apparently
welEhty jug. Someone suggested moon
shine" and set the revenue officers on his
track The officials Investigated smiled,
but went quietly away without disturbing
the supposed culprt or explaining their
conduct to his neighbors.
one night. however as III luck would
have II. says writer in Kate Fields
Washington. an inhabitant of that region
fell into the creek which ran close by
what little village there was. When he was
iished out his clothes We're black as ink.
This led TO discovery. Some miles away
the refuse of n dye establishment ran into
the creek The dye was strong and the
water supply so meager that the result of
the mixture was good ink. which the
smart countryman dipped into n jug and
carried to a neighhorng town for sale as
often MS he needed money. do not vouch
for this tale, but 1t is said TO be a true one.
Ginseng is the basis of the Chinese elixir
of life. II is considered the panacea for all
Celestial Ills Every year the people of
that country pay people in the United
states 100000 for five or six hundred
pounds of ginseng.
Ginseng is "A root which grows in all the
rich upland woods of America from Can
ada to the Gulf of Mexico. In great
many states sang digging is merely an
incidental, If profitable addition to regu-
lar farm crops. Up in the mountains of
West Virginia. however. there are whole
communities of people who do nothing else
for living The men are short, tough.
tireless and agile peaCeable and temper
ate, and they clothe themselves in any
kind of cast-off rags The women usually
wear single calico garment, while the
children so naked, and they all live on
fried bacon, corn bread and tobacco. Mar
riage Is not a necessity, but anything bor
derng upon polygamy is not smiled upon.
Their dwellings are one-roomed log huts
with clay chlmneys. The beds are the
floors OF their houses.
From october to May the Sanger" as
he is called. hates work. but from May to
october he works like a beaver digging the
ginseng root. This he sells green to the
nearest country storekeeper. The rind of
the root is pale salmon color the inte-
ror is pure white; 1t tastes not unlike lie
orce. and has faint. aromatic odor.
Ginseng root must be dried either In the
GRATED by steam before 1t is ready to pass
from the rural merchant to the city dealer.
who passes ii on to the seaboard and
thence to China.
Not far from Cape May New Jersey.
there is Il unique mining industry. Cedar
is indigenous to the soil of that foreign
country, and centuries ago there must
have been fine forest of cedar trees
where are now the swampy suburbs of
Cape May. \ mighty storm or earthquake
mi luya fplla1 nt
for gigantic trees we'll smaller ones
lie at fun length mbedded in soft muck
many feet below the surface of the earth.
AS far back 1872. log was discovered
by a Jerseyman supposed to have been dig
ging for Captain kidd's lost treasure.
When hauled to the surface, 1t found
to be perfectly preserved Since that time
the people of that vicinity have mined for
this wood to a greater or less extent.
The government of the United States,
too. makes money annually from sources
which have grown to be so constant that
they can hardly be called unexpected. Be-
fore each year is over there is always a
tidy little sum turned over to the profit
ana loss" account through the carelessness
or misfortune of people with whom it
transacts business. The government is
not at fault If a man loses his money
order and does not know enough to get n
duplicate. Its employees try in every pos
sble way to help the creditor to his deserts
and get in the thirty years since money
orders have been in use, $l,3OO0OO has been
turned into the postotiice department fund
solely from unpaid money orders. Then
there IL paper money which has been de-
stroyed beyond redemption, the frag-
ments of which have never been presented
to the proper bureau, and the lost coupon
bonds which are never replaced, and the
destroyed postage and revenue stamps. All
this amounts to millions of dollars a year
in profit which can never be cast up once
for all since government debts are sell
dom outlawed.
New York city contains any number of
men who earn their living in odd ways.
There is the IL" man who winds re-
pairs and keeps all the clocks going in the
elevated railway stations. hundreds of
them, and / venture to say that IL IL not
nearly so remunerative job the one of
keeping the few timepeces in the capitol
in disorder.
The old cork man helps New York mat
rons clean house in return for the old
corks and bottles which may have accu-
mulated in various dark corners These
corks and bottles are reJuvenated and
many of them are sold 10 drug stores but
/ imagine that it is this same old man who
goes about in the winter time and Of
fers to change Kitchen windows into bow
ers of beauty for the small sum of %
cents. If the owner consents and pro-
duces the quarter, the man whips out a
lot of broken bottles ana Jars from "A bas-
ket winch he carries on one arm, and some
Ioots ana pulps from receptacle sus-
pended from the other. Into one bottle
goes sweet potato, into another a Chi
nose NY, or something similar. or per-
haps he will borrow soup plate filled
with water into which he sprinSes seeds.
I'm two weeks that window SILL" he prom
ises, ''wtl be as green as a park"
In these days, chimney sweeps are
scarce, but rat catchers are numerous.
The richest one is said to make about
5000 month. He tries 10 catch them
alive, because live rats are worth 20 cents
apiece to certain members of the sport
ing profession. The dog catcher is another
wealthy member of society well known in
every city.
Tea tasting is a talent which will COM
mand almost any salary for its possessor
one expert gets $4,000 a year. The care
which he has to take OF himself and his
diet however, is well worth the price
WHAT CAIISFS RIUsuINco