Year: 1873

I
The New York DAILY Graphic


gives the following lively sketch Of


the home of the rag-pickers and junk


men in Brooklyn:


Spring in its coming, smiles on no


place more blandly than the Sandy


Bank, an outskirt Of Brooklyn. in the


immediate vicinity Of GOwanus. Ii


is most drabbled outskirt Of the eitv.


where now, though as vet the worms


have not begun to come out Of their


muddy homes, the youngsters are


making their first public appearance


since the entrance of winter. Sandy


Bank is the home of that curious


race of beings-the rag-piekers and
junksters-whom nobody ever sus-


pected of having a home, the general


vague impression being that they are


an ugly sort Of sparrow. sired By


squalor. and tumbling down to sleep


anywhere where a convenient ash


barrel may present itself The sup
position is prespOsterOus. There is


no doubt of that-fOr who except a


hunchback could sleep in an ash


barrel, or an intoxicated person,


whose joints would bend in any way,


to suit emergencies. But here is the


bona tide settlement at the foot Of


COurtist, where for some years they


have oquatted like so many tOads-


There are sixty or seventy shanties,


not one of them over twelve feet


high; some painted a dirty white,
some a smutty red. and some show
ing only bare boards, and almost all
of them covered with old tin or rusty
sheet iron. The caves of some of the
roofs are not as far from the ground


as a mans waist, and one wonders


where all the men and womeu-it
they may be so called-can be


housed therein, when due attention


has been paid to the social require
ments of all the goats, dogs, hens,
cats, and pigs, which have evidently
as much sense of proprietorship Of
the interior of the houses as they
have of the exterior If the street
We're little higher, the settlement
might be said, like Claude Melnotte's
villa, to be in a deep vale, shut out
from the rude world but really the
street is only high enough to permit
of youngsters rolling off of it into
muddy bottom without sinking so
deep in the mire as to be lost forever.
4 geolOgist like Professor Silliman
should study the physical features of
the place on the surface, there is a
layer Of ashes-plainly due to vol
canic actiOn-mingled with a schistOse
conglomerate of old hats, coffee pots,
tin pans, and cans which once con-
tanned preserved vegetables what
portion of the literary period can
these be due, the eveene, miOcane, or
pliOcene Then there are bones
which may have belonged TO horses
or even mastOdOns and tafirS, swept
down from the city in ancient times
GLACIERS (for they are not unmingled
with glass;, or brought down by
aqueous action, or some Carthusian
catastrophe. Between the houses
there are alleys where the wild goat
pranees in his majesty, cocks up his
tail. elevatcs his horns, and springs
even to the roofs, where, in such
weather as that which is now upon
US, he suns himself in quietude and
peace There are rows here occa-
siOnally, and the hook of the ehif-
fonier. used to all sorts of uneleanli-
ness, fastens on the raiment of the
bearded Dutchman as upon familiar
thing but the rows fight themselves
out, and the police are seldom called
upon to interfere 1t is a clumsy
sort of communism which is here dis
played equal in rights are humanity
and the beast. The boy chases the
sturdy pig, and drives him away like
an army with banners but while that
boy stands boasting victor, behind
him eometh the capering goat, and
butteth him with serious glee, until
he fees away bowling into the will
derness. Upon the roof the cat sits
calmly, as is her wont; below the
swine roots in the mire, even at this
early season, and the hens talk in
their absurd wav to each other as they
look at the hog, and endeavor, in their
feeble way, to discover why 1t is the
tail of the unclean beast doth wriggle
aud be slapped from side to side when
there are no flies to be driven away
Every once in a while Brooklin says
that it is going to clean out this place,
and drive the squatters into the sea
or up to the neighborhood of our own
Central Park 1t is said that it has
some notion of doing so this year, s.,
but, for aesthetic reasons, if not for
ones, it is to be hoped that
nothing will be done in the matter,
ior Sandy Bank is one of the fewpic-
-uresque places over the river