Dust, than which nothing can, upon a superficial view, be considered
more insignificant, was, a few years back, of very considerable value,
far surpassing the value of many things acquired by difficulty and
danger, and for which the breadth of oceans are traversed, through
storms and tempests. Perhaps a cruise to the Gold Coast, with all its
drawbacks and contingencies, is scarcely so profitable as the returns on
the quantity of dust collected in the City of London, during the time
necessary for the voyage, and its accomplished return. About the period
I allude to, the parish of St. Luke received no less a sum than between
one and two thousand pounds a-year for dust collected, which, being
placed to the parish account, tended in a _great measure_ to keep
down the poor'-rates. In addition to its value, no kind of property is
better secured; as will be evinced, when the reader is informed that his
present Majesty, George IV., when he was Prince Regent, lost an action
for the recovery of the value of dust, carried away from the palace, by
his servants, to be used as manure. In order to a further illustration
of the subject, it is necessary to inform the reader, that what has
hitherto been considered is but a part of that incongruous combination,
the contents of a dust-cart--the very last residuum--the matter called
"brize;" previous to which, by the result of much labour, of picking,
raking, sorting, and sifting, a very pretty property is collected by the
various shareholders of this joint, stock company, as a recent case that
was brought forward at the Bow-street office will suffice to convince
us.[3]
Perhaps the reader may have never witnessed the ejection of a
dust-cart: presuming he has not, I will endeavour to give him a general
outline of the ceremony; together with all the circumstances attending
it, and a sketch of the group and foreground. Suppose an eminence of
about five or six feet already collected, in a circular form; on the
heap is a man raking about, and a little child playing with a small
brown shaggy mongrel of a dog, with a community of pigs battening on
the acclivity; a youth below, with spade and axe, is supplying three
women with stuff--if women they may be called, who, of all the progeny
of old Mother Nox, seemed most the resemblances of age, misery, and
want; I say _seemed_, for when one was called--one of three--I
beheld, as she raised her dilapidated Dunstable, a face, where beams of
pensive beauty struggled through dusty darkness, and which mantled to a
smile at the sound of notes whistled to the tune of--"In Bunhill-row
there liv'd a Maid"--indicating the approach of Joe--for it was _his
cart:_--the dying cadence now gave way to the gee-up! uttered in deep
bass, accompanied with a smart smack of the whip, to urge the horse up
the ascent. Joe was a decent sort of boy enough for his avocation, not
to be ranked among those who "troop under the sooty flag of Acheron;"
but a clean, square-built fellow, with a broadish face and forehead,
blue eyes, nose rather short, expanded, and inclined upwards, and tinted
with that imperial hue that indicated his knowledge was not confined
to dry measure; this, with a mouth a little elongated, formed a
countenance, upon the whole, full of mirth and good-humour. This piece
of device was surmounted by a hat of the usual professional form--a
domed piece of felt, with a most prodigious margin: he wore a good stout
flannel jacket, and waistcoat; his shirt collar fastened by a leaden
brooch, in the shape of a heart, deviating from the general costume.
His continuations were of white drill; but, mark the vanity! short
enough to display a pair of hoppers, otherwise gaiters, of the same
material; these, with a stout pair of ancle-Johns, completed his
outward man of an order "simply Doric."
At Joe's approach, all was stir and bustle; the pigs, to the third and
fourth generation, moved "in perfect phalanx," not "to the Dorian mood
of flutes and soft recorders," but to their own equally inspiring grunt;
varying from the shrill treble to the deep-toned bass. Jewler, too, ran
barking; but with less interested feelings; and his little patron ran
to take the whip.
A few interrogatories on each side, a joke, and its accompanying laugh,
occupy brief space; when, suddenly, a general rush proclaims the load is
strewed upon the ground! a chaotic mass--"old hats, old wigs, old boots,
old shoes, and all the tribe of leather," remnants of all things, the
ends and the beginnings, horticultural fragments and broken crockery,
the hunter's bone and the beggar's rags, pilfered lace suspected, and
the stolen jewel, the lost gold, and the mislaid spoon: and, for a
climax, rejoice! gentle reader--for when the designs of the crafty are
defeated by inadvertence, or otherwise, with the weird sisters, "we
should rejoice! we should rejoice!"--a bill for fifteen pounds, drawn
by a lawyer for expenses, and which was taken to the acceptor by the
dustman, for which he received a considerate remuneration. Complicated
as this mass appears, it is all reduced to the most perfect order, and
each portion arranged according to the purposes intended for. Thus, the
vegetable matter, so eagerly seized upon by the pigs, contributes to
keep up a supply of _dairy-fed_ pork and _Epping sausages:_
the bones are laid aside for the purposes of making hartshorn and
phosphorus, dominoes, and apple-scoops, &c. The old boots and shoes,
with the tribe of leather, after a slight examination of their utter
inefficiency, find their way, through divers passages to the glue-pot.
How fractured bottles, and broken glass of every description, is
disposed of, is easily _seen through_--to the furnace; and how the
old iron is appropriated, is not hard to guess. The old woollen, if
perchance any should exist in the shape of a pair of innominables,
after exploring the pockets, and a sigh for their insolvency, are
unceremoniously cast aside along with the worthless remains of rags of
every description, string, paper, &c. &c., to pass through the operation
necessary for making brown paper. What still remains, of coals, and
cinders unconsumed, the dustman's perquisite, are measured first,
"thence hurried back to fire:" the wood, the sifters take. Broken tiles,
bricks, delf, crockery, with a variety of substances and etceteras, go
towards the formation of roads. I had almost forgotten the crowning
item, viz. old wigs! Towards the close of the last century, so much were
they in request, that the supply was scarcely equal to the demand. Yes,
in the days of Beau Tibbs, every street had its corner and every corner
its shoe-black, and to every shoe-black might be traced an old wig,
sometimes _two_. In those days of ruffles and etiquette, when
a well-formed leg was advantageously displayed in _whole_ silk
stockings, shoes, and buckles, it was the custom with pedestrians, when
making a call, to have their shoes wiped and touched up at the corner
of the street nearest the place they were going to visit: and what so
efficient for the purpose as an old wig? nothing. But, alas! those days
are gone! and Beau Tibbs is gone! and, if we question where? only Echo
answers. But what becomes of the old wigs? is the question at issue.
Alas! again, such is the degeneracy of modern days, that, instead of
being used as an appendage to the toilet, though humble, I fear they
will be traced to the vulgar bricklayer and plasterer, to be mingled
with mortar, and "patch a wall, to expel the winter's flaw." Now, I
believe, every particle is accounted for; and any little article, in the
shape of a bijou, is the perquisite of those pickers-up of unconsidered
trifles, the sifters.
_Monthly Magazine._
[3] It was a dispute between a dustman and a sifter, as to which had
the most rightful claim to a five-pound note, found in the ashes;
and certainly nothing could be more impartially decided; for
as their claims, or rather their non-claims, turned out to be
equal--that is, in point of law--it was retained by the presiding
magistrate in trust. In the course of the inquiry, it appeared
that the sifter had realized sufficient property to enable her to
be proprietress of three houses.
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