Street Sketches—The Chiffonier

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STREET SKETCHES—THE CHIFFONIER.

While at our early breakfast, on looking out of the window we frequently perceive an ill clad tatterdemalion of either sex, busily engaged in raking over all the heaps of filth and garbage with which many of our streets are profusely covered, and penetrating into vacant lots, exploring every foot of the surface, and all the indiscriminate matters which Bridget has promiscuously scattered there. At first sight, one is greatly inclined to despise the avocation itself, and the human being who can demean himself to follow it. But a very little consideration will convince us that the business of chiffonier or rag-picker is useful and necessary, and therefore an honorable and respectable one, when pursued with industry, and not allied, as it sometimes is, to a course of depredations from back yards and unprotected premises. In fact the rag-picker should be regarded by the public as a benefactor. Should anything occur that would destroy the ragpicker, what would become of the publishing establishments and other friends of paper? We look to the paper mills for our supply, and in turn the paper mills look to the ragpicker for material. How few of the young lovers, when they indite loving epistles to their heart's affection, ever cast a thought as to what means they are indebted for the gilt-edged paper or the embossed envelope. They can hardly ascribe it to chance. No, their benefactor is the ragpicker, he who at the approach of the day can be seen plodding the streets and alleys with his dirty pack upon his back and sedulously searching all the filth piles for a hidden scrap of linen or cotton.—To the uninitiated his labors promise a small compensation, and when we take into consideration the amount of labor to be performed before the rags are fit to sell, we cannot but agree that the pay is small. After the bits have been collected, the picker wends his way homeward, and in three or more waters his treasures are cleaned of alldirt; then they are dried, assorted and finally taken to the purchaser. When the supply or rags fail, our industrious friend turns his attention to gathering bones. Gutters, whose contents are impregnated with an unsavory smell, are carefully raked—every lane and alley is studiously scrutinized by him, not even the garbage vessels are exempt from his search; he carefully selects his bone and places it in his sack. And while thus engaged, perchance he is observed by some aristocratic being whose only words of encouragement are, "The best place for all such characters is the workhouse." The appearance of the ragpicker betokens the most abject poverty—his raiment looks as if it had been manufactured soon after the deluge; soap and water to him are luxuries unheard or unthought of. At last, however, he is compelled to doff his filthy attire, and deposit it alongside of his other treasures. His looks give unmistakable proofs of German descent, and he is allowed to pursue his calling without a thought being spent upon him as being the greatest friend of literature and science. In justice to the class, we must give them the credit of being a useful and an indispensable race of beings.