The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-08-18
SOME FREAK JOBS
 IN NEW YORK CITY Odd LiveIihoods Earned By
 Hundreds of People THE PAY OF BUG HUNTERS Renting Babies to Beggars Is Profit abIe-singlne Teachers to Can
 ary Birds-Playmates to
 Millionaire Children.
THE PAY OF BUG HUNTERS

New York, August lI-(SpeeiaL) )-An old set of false teeth, auctioned off as the effects of an eccentric poet who recently died on Long Island, caused spirited bid- ding and finally were knocked down to a man who gave his business as a dealer in second hand molars and incisors in New York This started some of tho bystand- CTS to discuss queer ways of making living in the metropolis.
 A newspaper man in the group who had made a study of the East Side Ghetto, said that the queerest way of meeting the rent he had ever run across was the job of turning out lights for orthodox Jews on Friday. According to the Tall mud, no faithful Jew may either strike match or eXunguish any kind of fire or light on Friday night Even the electric incandescent lamp must not be extin- guished. As a consequence the ortho- dox Jews hire some Gentle to light their hres and lamps and to put them out at bed time. There are a number of Gentle women who continue to live near Hester street just to make extra money in this way. One woman will have several fam lilies for whom she is official extinguisher and each pays her ten or twenty-five cents SA SfSh hiOAV CdCH McGhs SO li<tJ they can go to bed in comfortable darkness.
 The Straneest Job.
 A second man said that the strangest job he knew of was that of a man who was retained by big contracting com pany principally because of the beautiful way in which he broke the news of an ac- cident to the widow and then attended to the family-with resultant saving in claims for damages.
 Renting baby to a professional beg gar is to my mind the oldest form of making cash,' hazarded third. "We just loked up a case where a mother rented very winning, though sickly-looking baby, to another woman, who held 1t on her lap and silently held out hand for aims. She got into trouble, however, for pinching the baby to make 1t cry when a particularly prosperous pedestrian ap- preached"
 How about a singing teacher for Can ary birds asked another. There's one in Brooklyn. Or, for that matter, if you want a queer one, what's wrong with the snake-dietician at the zoo, who has to know just when to give the boa-con- strictor a live rabbit or a dozen raw eggs?"
 They'll do," was the reply. But add to the list the man who paints the tall hagpoles, the chap who keeps the Cen tral Park obelisk from wearing away, the gem doctor down in Maiden Lane who can make a sick pearl or ruby good as new by some sort of hocus- -pocus. Yes, and keep the place for the man who paints black eyes into a normal appear ance and the other man who can color and bandage up a panhandler until he looks as if he had the most painful dis cases"
 And just include the man over at the xUha ic Inc to ha some rare disease. He charges so much an hour for exhibiting himself at clinics and medical society meetings" put In a medical student.
 Another man told of a young woman who acts as professional center rush at women's bargain counters. She calls her self a shopping guide. She charges so much per day and takes some little wo- man shopping-sees that she gets next to the good things and really saves in time and money more than the charges.
 Book Destroyer.
 The book-destroyer is another man with a freak job. Big firms frequently finish up a set of bulky ledgers and &C., count boohs. If their rivals get hold Of the names of customers in these books, they could play havoc with the firms trade. At the same time it's a mean job to destroy five or six great books. If you try to burn them the sheets may fly out the chimney. So the firms pay thor oughly renable man to turn their old ac counts into pulp, which he later sells to the paper mills.
 A strangely-earned fortune is that gleaned by a metropolitan huntsman known as the Piped Piper. He is a rat and bug expert and a score of gilt-edged apartment houses and hotels pay him by the year to bring his ferrets and traps t,fr o,,1 fIc tr. terminate rats and reaches and water bugs and other undesirable neghbors. Some rich persons will pay him nearly dollar flea to get rid of pests.
 Child Determination.
 There is also a child exterminator for hotel apartments and homes of the rich He doesn't kill the children but he does keep them out of the way of society mad mothers for a certain number of hours each day He calls himself-prvately, of course-expert playmate to the poor little millionaire boys. He got the idea that there was money in giving the children of the rich a chance to be children in stead of little drawing room prigs or gov erness tormentors. So he went to New York university, which is giving special courses for teachers in managing play grounds and clubs for children and phy- slcal training and child hygiene, and learned the trick of keeping little chaps happy and well by systematic play.
 In a short time he got all the sons of the very rich he could handle. He hired a vacant piece of property and started in to teach them to play ball and to do gymnasium stunts every afternoon in- stead of loafing about the hotel corridors and learning deviltry from bell-boys. On Saturdays he takes the children to the country somewhere or to the navy yard or 6 public museum. The first year he cleaned up 5000 and now women drive up in their carriages and beg him to take their boys. In summer he runs high class boys camp on a lake, charging Sar- atoga rates.