The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-12-01
COATS FROM OLD HATS.
New York Firm That Buy Dilapidat-
ed Headgear to Make Shoddy.

In Hudson street. not far from the
old New York CentraPs first freight
station. with Commodore Vanderbilt's
statue in front of it, is a firm that
gathers in all the old hats it can get
from all parts of the United States. In
the lofts are thousands upon thousands
of old hats of every size, shape and
description: hats that have been worn
by men, women and children in every
part of this country San Francisco,
New Orleans. Chicago, st. Louis and
other western cities send more old
hats to New York than are collected
in the city itself. In fact, the old hats
collected in New York cut slight figure
in the market.
The trade in old hats is most pc
culiar. 1t actually has a quotation in
the wool market usually 2 cents a
pound. But New York purchasers pay
much more than that when the supply
runs short, and also when some man
out west offers a few tons of damaged
mats that have come to grief in a fire.
The collectors in the west do not stop
to sort or strip the old hats of their
frames or Innings. The New York firms
must buy old hats as they are, and
nave the trimming done after the DUR
chase has been taken off the scales.
The old hats are put into steam press
es OF tremendous power, and packed in
to bales of 300 pounds each, and from
mat up to 800 or even 1000 pounds. 1t
IS too expensive to ship them by rail
There is no hurry so the cheapest route
is the best. West of the Mississippi they
are sent by river to New Orleans, and
from there up by coast steamers or sail
ing vessels. East of the Mississippi, the
great lakes and the Hudson river are
called into service But go as they WILL
the shipper from San Francisco counts
on two cents a pound to get his goods
to New York, and the Chicago shipper
counts on one cent pound. There is
no market for old hats out west, COM
paratively speaking. because there are
so few shoddy mills there. The EASTERN
ers have monopoly of the old hat bus
mess.
When the hats reach New York the
bales are cut, and a gang of women
put at work sorting out the different
sorts of material and casting aside the
frames. What is left of the old hats
is again put into a press and packed in
bales of 500 or 600 pounds, much tighter
and in a far superior fashion than the
bales received from the west.
When the bales from far off cities reach
New Y rk they are bound with cord so
loosely that one might cut them asunder
New York to the shoddy mills, paper mills
or wherever else market can be found,
they are bound with wire as thick as tele.
graph wire, and so tightly fastened that
when one of them parts it is with a
spring and snap like a broken violin
string.
! There are only three firms engaged in
1 the business in this city, and they are
1 very reticent about their affairs. The fact
/ that the one near the old freight station
j has been there ever since that structure
was built is sufficient evidence of the fact
! that there is money in the trade The old
! hat buyers won't tell where they sell their
number of New Workers wearing cheap
suits are likely as not carrying around
small fragments Of old hats raked in
from all parts Of Uncle Sans wide do
maius.-NeW York Times.