STRANGE TRADES.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3137, 23 April 1883, Page 3

STRANGE TRADES.

Tbe following interesting article, which &ive« one a curious insight into the ways and means by which many mysterious and apparently professionless mortals manage to scramble profitably through life is clipped from the London “Globe.’’ By the towing-path at race times upon the downs at Epsom, and in many •other places where men congregate for a man can be seen carrying a well filled linen bag. In this bag are ihazel-nuts, which are the instruments of his profession. If you enter iuto ■conversation with him he will soon let ; you know how be makes a living. He requests you to put your hands into the .bag. and close them over as many nuts as ‘ jou can choose. You then show him your I closed fists, and he guesses the number of nuts you have impounded, allowing 'himself a margin, of one. If be guesses •correctly, you pay a penny and take WoUr nuts ; if he is wrong, and he does • ;hot ever’seem to be, yon have your nuts •for nothing. A long study of crammed fists has made him very accurate in '•computing the number of nuts enclosed, and in case of a mistake the margin of •one be stipulates for really gives him ■;two other* chances —the number next ’-*b ove, and the number next below. ‘This is one type of an odd occupation. > *Come down this grimy back street, and •WO shall see a dwelling - house has been turned into a small factory. Here are manufactured the ipatent joints for the legs and arms of tdbils. Out of this industry a very Ibandsome income is extracted, for all tflfeilioll-makera are.supplied with dolls’ 3<nnlw from this one factory. The in- - Tentor, who in this instance is also the manufacturer, has pondered; deeply •upon doll*’ joints, and knows a good ii««wy things that are not to bo found in ■ Uthe encyclopedias. There are more •people than the World suspects who, like these two, gain a livelihood by < of'curious odds and ends. Many •«f these odds and ends cannot be conuridered as very remunerative, they afford a pittance and nothing more, but others of them are decidedly auriferous,, arid produce incomes that wealthy men might envy. It is the poor and sihifty dependents upon odds and ends, Jliowever, who are the roost interesting. 'Respectability supported by dolls’ joints •ex some of the toys that have of late .years built fortunes for their inventors, ii very much like any other respecta- •» ibility. But the men who resolutely cultivate their singular little aptitudes, Ct walk upon their singular little bypaths, uncheered either by fame or by golden rewards, are much more entertaining figures for the student' cf t humanity.