The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-01-28
JUVENILE OCCUPATIONS.

|
 The Trades of the Miniature Merchants ! Odd Shifts They are Put To-The 1 Lodging-House Boy and His Charac-
 teristics.
 "Is he going to take it home to burn?" was asked of an employe of a large chemical factory, as a youngster of nine or ten years trudged off with an armful of broken frames and boxes.
 Not he. He's in business" answered the man, looking after the little fellow, with an amused twinkle in his eye.
 "In business! that child?"
 "Yes. He's goin' on eleven. He's been in business two years now. He and two other chaps, one younger than him, has got a woodward. turn them over all the scrapings I can spare, and when there aint any to give away, they come here and work for me half day or so to pay for load. You see, the factory uses the thrown-away frames and broken boxes for firewood; so it's only in between times, like to- day, that can give away any for noth- l ing"
 Where is the woodward, and whom do the boys sell to?" he was asked.
 'They sell kindling-wood to the tene- ment-house people" was the answer. 'They are the 1odgin'-house boys. | 'Newsboys' Lodging-house' it is called, but there's a sight of them as sleeps there what never sells newspaper. These three did errands and one thing and another that would turn in a nickel or dime, until they got money enough | together between them to set up in bus mess. They rent cellar round there in Catharine street somewhere for a dollar and half month, and they keep their wood there and sell it out bit by bit. I think little while back a house agent let them have cellar rent free for month or two, but some thing happened to him and they had to move Their cellar hasn't got any floor and is dark as a dungeon, but they manage to see in it, and they tell me that they are doing quite well with the | business. This here boy you saw col lects the wood and carries it to the woodward, the biggest one tends to the splitting of it up, and the other fellow sells it. At first, when they begun, they used to break up the pieces with a stout paving-stone, but lately they have a hatchet and an axe. The part ner who does the selling peddles the wood round at the tenement-houses at three and five cents bundle
 ''They have the work well divided be- tween them Of course, when the col lector can't find any free hauls, the whole firm has to turn in and work to get money to buy more stock with. They are industrious little fellows and I believe perfectly square and honest. Parents? Well, I don't know They never say anything about them or about their families, any more than a colt or kitten would that was astray. I guess they ain't got any what's any account"
 It is interesting to hear of the shifts and expedients by which an untold army of these luckless little adventer- CTS make their living. Bootblacks and newsboys there are a-plenty, but others besides have no sleeping quarters and no means of support except what they earn for themselves day in and day out of the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year.
 Any morning, near one of the lodg- ing-houses where these boys board, a group may be seen with their heads to- gether scanning eagerly the mornings s paper, a paper that has been bought in partnership, or that has been borrowed from some friend in the newspaper bus mess. They get up very early to look over the advertisements and see what offers in their particular line.
 Here's a canal-boat in," says one chubby cheeks, pointing to the fine | lines of the advertisement
 "And here's fruit-schooner, hur- rah!' exclaims another.
 "You give back the paper, Jim," says the first speaker, folding it up. "Wait a minute" says Jim. 1T heard last night something about fire up town. Let's see if we can find out anything about it."
 But Jim's companions have vanished in a trice, gone to the cana1-boat and the schooner in search of odd jobs. No merchant or stock-broker who scans the morning advertisements as he eats his leisurely breakfast examines the days bearings more carefully than Jim, who knows that bread, and per- haps butter, of certainty a place to sleep, depends on his chances for a job. How he has learned to read so glibly is a mystery.
 The boys who help to clean a canal boat; brushing out the cabins, scrub ping up the decks bit, and doing oth- CT rough tasks, are paid for their ser vices in potatoes or in ouch cargo of provisions as the boat brought to the city. Sometimes they are given the remnants of coal left over in the boats bins. If they hSlp with the unloading of fruit-schooner they get compensa- tion in over-ripe oranges, under-ripe bananas, mushy grapes, or sodden ap- pies, with a handful of good fruit thrown in. All these find ready sale when peddled about from house to house in the thick-settled living dis tricts, where the inmates are not over particular. There an apple is an ap-