THE DUST CART.
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.