Morris tribune., 1897-02-17
OLD coRKs.
They Are Articles of Commerce and Have
o Number of Uses.

They Are Articles of Commerce and Have
a Number Of Uses.
1t was easy to find the ''old cork =
establishment, for I'm elaborate cork
castle of ridiculous proportions
adorned the window, and four stiff
legged cork men were apparently
making efforts to drive a score or
80 of cork fowls into the castle keep.
Inside the shop the proprietor was
busily sorting new looking corks
into little muslin bags for samples.
"These, " said he in the course of
my chat with him, "are all old
corks, and perhaps some of them
have been remade three or four
times. Yes; / can make money out
of any sort of old corks, good or
bad These, he continued, leading
the way to long, high room, lined
on each side with immense wooden
bins, are all old corks. This first
bin, you see, is filed with mixed or
broken cork articles.
I pay something like pence or
6pence pound for this refuse, and
after being washed in hot water and
then dried it is ground fine and
sold to linoleum manufacturers at 2
shillings pound
These are what we call screws, !"
he said, leading the way to a bin of
old ginger beer and wine bottle
corks. by screws we mean that
the corks have been pierced by a
corkscrew, which, of course, renders
them unfit for remaking into new
corks. So we put them through a
coring' machine, which cuts the in
side out of them, and leaves a hol-
low tube The tubes are then sliced
into rings for use in beer and gin
ger beer bottles
1.-The very best quality of wine
corks, which are sold in first in
stance at from 8 shillings to 10 shil-
hngs a gross, are bought by us for s
pence. We get our supply of them
from the big west end clubs and
fashionable restaurants. 1t is very
seldom that corkscrew goes into
the corks in high priced wine. There
fore it is an easy matter for us to
make them into apparently brand
new corks. The walters at fashion
able clubs and other places where
expensive wine is drunk find that
collecting old corks is very valua-
BILE perquisite. Wine corks are our
most valuable commodity, and most
of the beer bottle corks now in use
are old wine corks which have been
remade.
Eyes, if it were not for our trade,
corks would be twice the price they
are at present We remake an enor-
nous number in a year. Why, when
started in this business six years
ago, estimated that the value of
the corks thrown away in England
in year amounted to e75, 1000.
"How do I get the old corks? Oh,
that is an easy matter. When I
started in business, / used to go
round to the public houses and no
tets and gather them myself. In
those days potboys and walters
were not up to the dodge, and I
generally used to get the old corks
for nothing. A little later on, when
I found had hit on a paying thing,
Ttook this place and hired couple
of men to collect corks for me. Now
/ have six men always out gather
ing them, and each man has a list of
hotels where he must call every
week. We pay 4 to pence a gross
for corks. Sometimes my men will
bring in one day four hundred
weight of corks between them. This
is no small amount, as there are
from $50 to 100 corks in a pound.
Another branch of my business
is the collection of dust. You see
that bin?'' pointing to box hold
ing two or three carloads of some
thing like coarse sawdust. THAT is
what we call dust grape packing
it is in reality Most cheap grapes
are packed in cork dust. Well, two
of my men do nothing but collect
this dust They visit Covent Garden
market and the larger fruit shops
every day and buy the dust for next
to nothing. 1t is brought here and
sifted into two degrees of fineness.
The coarser quality I sell to lineo
leum manufacturers, and the finer I
send to big makers of patent medi
cines, who use it for packing and
pay a good price for it. London
Answers.