The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1907-01-30
RICHES IN CITrS REFUSE
10000 PEOPLE IN PARIS MAKE
A LIVING OUT OF 1T.
How Things Found in Garbage Piles
Are Utilized, Many of Them
Going Into Food.


No other city in the world has
such a thorough system of dealing
with its refuse as Paris. There are
10000 persons engaged in digging
IN old ash barrels and garbage cans
and collecting from them articles of
value. They are known as chiffo-
niers. The chiffonier has a cart and
sometimes a bony nag to draw it.
Sometimes he and his wife draw it
Or maybe the wife alone He has
besides a howell and a yard some
where out in the grimiest suburbs.
There is where he sorts his gather
ing in the forenoon, for sale later in
the day to the wholesalers.
First of all he sets aside scraps of
food for his own use To a maya
zine writer who showed disgust at
this one of them struck back.
Don't curl your lips" he said
you don't know what you eat some
times yourself See these crusts?"
They were a heap of bread crusts in
all stages of dilapidation. These are
crusts that my horse won't eat.
sell them to the pork dealer at half
a cent a pound. They are roasted
in coffee rooster, granulated in
a mill and then used to sprinkle on
the top of hams, where they are
baked into nice brown crust.
The pork man sells the black
dust that falls from the mill to the
charcoal toothpowder makers and
the coffee grinders. Sometimes you
get it as prime chicory."
There was a great vessel full of
coffee grounds.
Il have a customer" said the chif-
fonier, "who dies them and regrinds
them with five per cent. of fresh
coffee, some Drowned rye and little
burned sugar. Then they're ready
for packing in cartons for retail sale.
They make excellent coffee.
In another bag there was a collec-
ton of heads of game birds, pleas
ants, cartridges, pigeons, reed birds.
Il sell them at three cents each
to secondhand restaurants, was the
explanation. when you get a sal
mi of duck or a game pie goodness
knows what odds and ends it is
made of, but it will be served with
one or two of my fgureheads de-
corating the dish as an evidence of
good faith.
One of the most profitable species
of refuse is old shoes and there are
as many as 60 wholesalers who are
engaged in the restoration of these
articles. Paris eats the flesh daily
from 10000 to $4,000 pounds of
bones. These are collected in yards
in the suburbs, where they undergo
a rigid examination. Men shovel
them on a long endless belt of
leather a couple of feet wide, which
is kept running at moderate speed
over rollers. Five or six women are
lined I'D beside it and as the bones
pass them they pounce with trained
Judgment upon those which have
special value The rest are automat-
icallv loaded on carts. The bones
which they select figure all over the
world later as ivory. Buttons are
cut from the shoulder blades, also
sticks for fans. Marrow bones make
nretty napkin rings and pincushlon
frames without much work in the
lathe. Outlet bones are used for
toothbrush handles.
The rejected bones are treated
with benzine for the extraction OF
the far. This becomes soap and
candles. The bones themselves may
he boiled up into gelatine and glue
or calcined into bone black.
Rabbit and hare are favorlte dell
cacies in France. Every day, it is
estimated, about $4,000 of their
skins get into the hands of the fur
riors All are scrupulously cleaned
and sterilized. These are shaved by
machinery down to the very skin ana
-, boir is made ND into fine felt
hats The rabbit or hare skin that
is TO figure as fur is treated with
distinguished consideration. It IS
onred and softened. The pure white
iones are picked out for ermine. All
the others are dyed into chinehilla'
otter or silver fox.
,o;d Pneumonia.