The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1901-08-20
RAGS AND THE RAeMAN.
Changed Modern ConditiOns-Declin
of the Family Rag bag.

Changed Modern ConditiOns-Declin
of the Family Rag bag.
1.-THE ragman goes about in the city's
streets just the same as ever" said man
who has given some attention to the sub
ject, "but he doesn't do the business that
he once did. Things have changed.
There are in these days not so many
clippings and odds and ends of new cloth
Of one sort and another to go into the
family rug bag as there once were to
begin with, because Of the new well nigh
common custom in cities anyway Of buy
ing already made up many things that
formerly were made In the house. Thou
sands of tons of clippings that formerly
were gathered up In small lots by many
ragmen are now baled In factories and
sold to mills or to dealers In paper stock
without any intermediate handling at all.
'sThen, what with the lower price of
rags nowadays, due to the substitution Of
other materials in paper making, 1t
scarcely pays the householder to bother
with the smaller quantity that now ac-
cumulates, with the result that rags are
now often thrown away with other rub
bish to be gathered by city collectors Of
refuse.
"Still not everybody by any means
throws away or gives away his rags.
There are still many people who continue
to sell their rags for what they can get
to the ragman, and it would not surprise
me to learn that there are more ragmen
now than ever, but the fact remains that
under. the new modern conditions the
business of the man with the jingling
bells Is not what it once was.
'In old times in smaller cities and
towns the householder, or, more strictly
speaking, the housewife, sold her rags to
the tin peddler The tin peddler was an
institution. He had a route which he
travelled year in and year out. Many
tin peddler came to be personally known
and respected by the people with whom
he traded, to whom he was not the ped
dler or the tin peddler, but Mr.. So-and-
so, and they use to wait for Mr.. So-and-
so to come around and dispose Of their
rags to him.
"These rags were carefully sorted out.
There were the rather small but valuable
lot of white rags tied up in white cloth
and the bigger bundle Of colored rags and
one perhaps of wooden rags which the
peddler weighed severally on the steel
yarQS L0aI NE DFOuShl ia AO4 IAoS PNA
pose. How many times have seen him,
staid man Of family, as now realize him,
and perhaps in spectacles, shifting the
weight along on the beam until rags and
weight balanced, and he made the an
nouncement of the weight, which was
almost invariably disappointingly small
'He would pay cash, but he preferred
that you should take 1t out in trade, and
commonly the housewife did so. Many
a dishpan and many dipper and skim
mer and don't know how many hand
some Britannia teapots and what else
have come through the tin peddler out OF
the rag bag.
''But now the tin peddler-that Is, the
peddler who drove horse to typical
peddler's wagon-has receded from these
smaller cities as previously he had reced-
ed from the larger ones. He has moved
on out into the country, over whose billy,
dusty roads he still pursues his way to
the farmhouse door, where he dickers as
before. But even there made up gar
ments go now to greater or less extent,
and for the rags that do accumulate the
modern low prices govern. And so, here
as everywhere, the family rag bag, once
everywhere looked upon as little mine
of wealth, has fallen from its high es-
tate. New York Sun.