ASTONISHNG TRADES

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 June 1927, Page 3

ASTONISHNG TRADES

WOMAN CINDER-REMOVER. Some astonished new ways of earning a living ’have been discovered by the United States Census Bureau. An old woman in the Wall Street district for example, makes a modest but sufficient living by taking cinders, dust, and other foreign bodies out of pedestrians’ and motorists’ eyes. She leaves the amount of her fee to her grateful patients, patrols her “beats” regularly, and on gusty days, in particular, reaps a rich harvest. She is known in the district only by the name of “Cinderella.” Another strange occupation discovered is that of the “ham-smeller.” This man is employed in various packing houses, and his duty is to stab every cured ham with a skewer, which he then passes under his nose. One sniff and he is able to discover whether the ham has soured round the bone in the process of curing. Another man makes a living by teaching parrots to speak, conducting his “classes” in a series of sound-proof rooms. A family of three, mother, father,

and child, maintains itself in relative comfort by posing for hours in shopwindows dressed in seasonable clothes the child’s role being principally that of open admirer of its parents’ costumes. Another queer occupation is that of manufacturer of upholstered dolls’ furniture. Women have also been discovered by the census-takers who make their living solely by collecting from the sea-shore shells to be made into jewellery and other ornaments. A man has likewise been found who lives by making caricature dolls for tourists, using dried apples fox* the head of his figures. The last word in queex’ callings, however, is that of a man in the State of Washington, who lives by buying the moustaches of walruses, which he sells to the proprietors of Chinese restaurants in California as toothpicks.