The French Broad hustler. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1896-1912, 1905-02-02
SOME STRANGE OCCUPATIONS
Very Peculiar Methods Of Making
a Livelihood.


To be a valet to begger sounds an i'm
possible way Of earning living. Yet in a
recent police court case in Loudon it trans
pired that man named Webb acted in that
capacity to mau without arms who begged
in the streets. Webb stated that his master
was ''most perticler," had to be shaved
every morning. and had his.sreeth brushed
three times day. Webb's wages were
SO week
The man who bites dogs tails for living
is well-known character in parts of Eng
land,
The north country miners have q super
stition that, if their upuppies' tails are
shortened" with knife instead of in the
old-fashioned way, their fighting qualities
will be injured. Only recently q man
named Graham was sent to prison for a
month for exercising:this peculiar calling.
AID equally odd and cruel profession has
been allowed by an East End man in Lon
don for the past twenty years: He buys
bad meat, and doctors it up in such fash
lou that it will pass muster when exposed
for sale ON the casters barrows.
He carves off all bad portions of joint
of beef, and washes what is left with sol
uron of permangAnate of potash. Fhis
has the effect of removing the, smell of
taint and enabling The meat to pass muster
until some poor woman has taken it home
for dinner
Until recently a woOden-limbed man
named O'Hara did a brisk business in
secondhand legs.
Whenever wooden-legged man or other
cripple died at the Hospital close by where
he liYed, O'Hara promptly bought up the
props and crutches, if the relatives we're
willing to sell. These he disposed of to
other poor patients who were unable TO af-
ford the surgical instrument makers prices.
Wearing the stiffness out of new boots
is another peculiar calling, yet London
bootmaker has man who, for consider
alton, Is prepared to do this for wealthy Gus
toners. He is kept busily employed. too,
averaging twelve hours tramping daily in
and about Hyde Park.
Even this occupation, however, is sur
passed in noyelty-at all events, IN its
mode of carrying out-6y tiat OF the mstf
whose profession is teaching. gentlemen
how to shave.
Some years ago this man lost fairly
good situation by reason of dishguring
barber's itch, caught at the hands of an ur-
cleanly barber.
He got rid of the complaint at last and
took to shaving himself; and now Barber
stands at BARRIERS doors-the mans name,
curiously enough, Is Barber-delivering
hand-bills, headed: "Why catch the itch?
Learn to shave YOURSELF" and offering
course of lessons in the art at a nominal
fee. He gets SIS week.
Some commercial travellers earn their in
comes in novel ways. None more so, per-
haps, than the gentleman whose slime" is
selling to the natives of Africa the idols
turned out in such quantities by well-known
Birmingham firms,
The commonest way to dispose OF god
is to ''square" with the witch doctor. The
savage holds "palaver" at which he de-
cIares the ''gods" want propitiating, and
this. of course, takes the form of a new
god.
Another way of booking orders is to steal
quietly into the sacred grove of village
and set up an idol unobserVed: When the
natives see it they are paralyzed, and
wonder how it got there. Their first act
is to fall down and worship it.
Then the smart traveller comes along with
explanar ions, and leaves the village with
another sale to his credit = London An
swers.