THE RAGPICKERS OF PARIS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3016, 3 January 1912, Page 85

THE RAGPICKERS OF PARIS.

SOCIOLOGISTS HAVE JUST LOOKED INTO CONDITION OF THE CHIFFONIERS AND THEIR WORLD. (New York Evendng Post.) French literature and French art have made us familiar with the ragged and grimy figures which, in the old times, when sanitation wag unknown and the debris of a city’s day was thrown out upon the street at night, poked about in the refuse and garbage and stuffed their bags with miscellaneous objects, from bread-crusts to old shoes. Poetic humanitarianiam of the period that gave us Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables” invested these errant knights of the bag, hook, and lantern with tne halo of romance; for when they returned to their haunts in the squalor of some illsmelling alley, these people bore names like “poils-aux-pattes,” hairy paws, “sac d’os,” bag o’ bones; or “gras dTiuile,” greasy; and became the virtuous heroes or the vicious villains of picaresque melodrama, the stirring incidents whereof held more than one generation of readers spellbound. Somewhat later, the social conscience of artists like Courbet awoke to the realisation of their picturesque possibilities and the willing brush fixed them upon canvas. To-day the sentimental and aesthetic interests are superseded by the sociological. Ecclesiastical and secular reformers are deeply concerned about the • physical and moral welfare of these I people, huddled together in parts bf the j gay metropolis into which the tourists | rarely penetrate; For within the last j 25 years or more they have slowly cmerged from the twilight of romance into the broad daylight of municipal research, and to the student of humanity their fife, with all its squalor and sordidr.ess, presents some unusual features. The ordinances which made obligatory in every household the galvanised tin can kept in the basement or the yard until the gatb.age cart made its round early in the morning, brought with it a thorough revolution in the world of the chiffoniers. When that ordinance came into effect the municipal authorities faced the problem of giving employment to 40,000 inhabitants of Paris, whose means of subsistence had been derived from refuse heaps. Deprived of the right of the road, they had to be given some privileges. Hence they were permitted to enter into a contract with the concierges, the all-powerfui janitors of Paris. These allowed a certain number of them to examine the contents of the garbage cans before their removal by the municipal collectors. After they had filled their bags, the cans were put but upon the j sidewalk and the doors were closed. This relieved the janitors of some work and gave them another hour of sleep, and raised the ragpickers to an officially recognised trade. —Division Into Placiers. — From this time dates the division into placiers, enjoying the right to enter certain premises at a given time, and coureurs, picking up upon the street what has escaped the notice of the other's. Tire placiers were ambitious to secure profitable routes, those in the poorer quar tors of lire city being worth from 10 to 50 francs, others rising to 150, and those in the neighbourhood of, the Trocadero being worth up to 40 francs. Occasion- j ally a particularly good route is given to ; some ragpicker of prominent antecedents, j for even such are not unknown in the I trade. The privileged ragpicker is al- : ways on good terms with the janitor, | rendering “madam© la concierge” many j little arrd receiving others in re- | turn. Madame keeps for linn the left- ; overs of last night’s dinner, which often j suffice for his own nourishment, if not | for that of his family. Even the ser- | vants cater 'to him. When he finds an | object of some value, they trace the j owner and secure for him a suitable re- I ward. On New Year’s Day, he is tiro j recipient of a respectable holiday tip. \ When he has worked himself up to the ! ownership of a little shanty and is ! ready to retire or engage in a higher grade of business, he sells his route and 1 introduces his successor to the ladies. I This is considered sufficient security that \ tire newcomer is possessed of the honesty j and good-will of his predecessor. There ! is an unwritten code, of ethics among I those poeple which, is as rigidly observed ; as a municipal law. A placier will not infringe upon the privileges of hjs rival; even the boundaries of the route are respected, as if trespassing were forbidden, under penalty of the law. —Whole Family Works.The coureur has a far more laborious task. He has to walk some 20 kilometres daily before lie can secure from 50 to 40 kilograms of refuse of varying value. I Usually the whole family works at the i trade. The old Plate de I’Estrapade ; was for many years the centre of their j operations. There in the early hours of i the morning would be stationed some I member of a ragpicker family with a huge j receptacle or a wheelbarrow, while the 1 others made the rounds and returned to ! empty their bags and go forth again, j But by 9 o’clock in the morning it was ! understood that all pickers were to be j back in their homes, which are all near j or outside of the city’s walls. A ragpicking colony with its dilapidated moving vans and other discarded vehicles serving as lodgings has much of the picturesoueness of a gipsy camp. But there are also a number of “houses”— that is, shanties built of wreckage and j placed on the bare earth with no attempt at a floor. Doors and windows fail to close properly and barely shield the inmates from rain or cold. But they are proud of their "property,” which they

value at 100 francs and which they sometimes rent to less prosperous colleagues at from 400 to 600 francs a year. When the tenant fails to pay his rent, the landlord proceeds summarily; he simply removes the door. A mother whom I found in such a hovel near the Porte d’lvry told me that when illness of her children made her fall behind and she had nailed a piece of carpet across the opening of the door thus removed, the owner coolly took the roof from over their heads. In such a shanty of not more than four metres it is not unusual to find from six to eight inhabitants. Within this space they work and sleep. At about 3 o’clock in the morning the neighbourhood is alive and a curious procession of pushcarts and other vehicles drawn by horses, donkeys, or dogs, or even by men and women, is seen hurrying towards the city. Towards 9 the procession returns, and the harvest of the day is examined. The refuse of vegetables and the remnants of meat with the least objectionable breadcrusts are cleaned and made into a pot-au-feu, which is the staple dish on the poor man’s table in. France. Clothing is picked up in the same fashion. Finally, whatever can be turned into cash is carefully assorted; crockery, linen, glass, tin, iron, cotton, paper; etc. Objects like tooth brushes are separated into their component parrs, each having a special market value, the bristles, the handle, and even the thread.

All that is marketable is then taken to one of the maitre chiffonniers, master rag- ' pickers, dealers, whose stores are located in the Quartier de Javel. there along the quai of the Seine can be seen heaps of bottle glass valued at 10 francs per 1000 kilo; there the bones are disposed of, ■scrap iron and brass, ana the rags which usually constitute the greater part of the stock . Some of these dealers have their specialties. All employ a large force of women and girls to assort the articles brought to them. Experts distinguish 13 kinds of new and 44 of old rags, 20 of cloth, 17 of linen, 26 of paper, 15 of broken glass, etc. Working from morning until night in the germ-laden atmosphere of j these Tank shops, the workers all suffer : from obstinate cougiis and various ailments of the eye. Yet upon the whole there is little sickness in the ragpickers’ colonies, and although conditions seem to v invite them, they are rarely vsited by epidemics. The trade having usually been followed by several generations of the same family, these people seem to bo immune to certain germs. j —A Race Apart.—

A race apart they seem in the population of the metropolis. They live not only on the outskirts of the city, but on the outskirts of society. When you meet them on streets like the Rue Mouffetard they look at you squarely as though perfectly unconscious of the contempt in which they are held by people of cleaner trades and occupations. “We do not mind the easiness of the bourgeois; let them take care of themselves and leave us alone.” This is the principal upon which they act. Their abject poverty is coupled with a certain liberty. Their isolation ensures them a degree of independence which they would miss in any other trade or environment. When the famous ordinance of M. Poubelle in 1885 threatened to deprive them of their daily bread, efforts were made to employ them as street-cleaners. But of several hundreds that had demanded municipal investigation of their circumstances, only eight accepted the work offered them. They justified their attitude by saying: “We work in freedom and do not want to be slaves. There are plenty of old men to do that kiliu of work. What we ask is to be allowed independently to work at our trade.” Nor do they claim the intervention of the law in any dispute arising among them or the sanction of the authorities in any union that they may form among themselves, marriage included.

Yet the moral status is not as low as one should expect. Police records show that they furnish but 1 per cent, of the total number of arrests. There are few crimes committed in their colonies at Belleville, Charonne Clignancourt, La Villette, and others. Their horror of imprisonment may keep them within bounds. Their only vice is inebriety. It seems that their occupation makes them crave liquor, which acts like caustic upon the membranes. In the cafes owned by the junk dealers they spend a good share of the money earned in drinks that poison their blood. There they grow oblivious of their duties and callous to their surroundings. The authorities which some time ago visited the most wretched of their colonies in the Thirteenth Arrondissement, the “Cite Dore,” found it almost impossible to enforce sanitary laws and other reforms among those people, whose spirit of independence resents all interference from the representatives of what they call bourgeois society.-—A. Yon Ex in:.