The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-10-11
NOW HE'S A JUNK DEALER.
Ups and Downs in Many Lands OF al
East Side Puslicart Nan.

Down on the lower East Side, you may
come across him any day, trundling his
pushcart along and sounding the slogan
of his trade: Rags Bottles! Rags! Bottles!"
He plays 80 humble a part in that hurly-
burly Of street life that you might rub
elbows with him a dozen times before
noticing him. Yet even In the lower East
Side, where odd characters are plentiful.
his career is considered eventful.
Hilel Luttinger il Hebrew and was born
in Austria. When lad he worked as q day
hborer on a railway In Roumania and
saved enough money to open q wine shop.
To innkeeping he next joined money
lending, and soon began acquiring the
farms OF those who borrowed from him.
At that time Roumania was in the hands OF
the Turks Then by some twist Of Turkish
law he was suddenly stripped OF his posses
sions.
He emigrated with his family to Bull
garia, and thence to Constantinople. He
tried the commission business, did well for
a time and met disaster In 1895, when he sent
three ships loaded with onions from Iske-
shier, Asia Minor, to London. A rot had
got into the onions and by the time London
was reached. the three cargoes were worth
less
Absolutely ruined Luttinger saw in the
Jewish colonies In Palestine his only chance
to scrape living for himself and his family.
After working at various callings in
Palestine. he next tried his luck in Egypt.
Then 5000 francs came due on an insurance
policy and he went to Marseilles. After
to the meeting Of Zionists that was being
held at Basic. Then he travelled up to
Cologne, where he had a brother. He
tried his hand at number OF trades, but,
failing in all, he finally drifted into the
junk business.
For three years he gathered the rags
and bottles of this German city, his family
remaining In Palestine, where his two
SONS, Paul and Daniel, were studying in
the Jaffa branch Of the Alliance Tsraelite
Universele, a series of schools maintained
by wealthy French Jews with the idea of
educating and unifying their Eastern
brethern.
At the end Of the three years Luttinger's
family joined him in Cologne, but the re-
short lived, for the authorities had just
passed a law that no alien could take out
license of any kind.
So Luttinger was again Obliged to take
to the road. He went to Dusseldorf, where
he found similar bar against aliens, and
then to Frankfort, where he was again met
by the same obstacle.
Utterly disguised with the Old World
he decided to strike out for America. Trav-
cling by way of Hamburg. London and
Liverpool, he and his family shipped for
Canada, intending to go into farming But
when he reached Quebec he changed his
mind and came TO New York.
He moved into an East Side basement
and hiring pushcart. again started In his
old business OF gathering rags and bottles.
This ex-landholder. ex-merchant and world
trotter now trundles hired pushcart and
picks up the outcast garments of the dwell
lers in tenements. He makes about 20 cents
on every 100 pounds he gathers. Some
times he gathers couple of hundred pounds
in day and again it may take him a week,
But his son, Paul. who, by his many
shifts of abode has been turned into
little polyglot, speaking and writing
English, French, German, Hebrew, Rou-
manian, Arabic and Turkish, secured work
when he reached New York as an inter
prefer in an East Side ticket office at 81
a week Since then he has been raised to
81 week And 1t Is In him that the hopes
Of his father now centre.