Everything is organized and licensed in Paris, the chiffonniers not excepted. After once entering on their calling, they usually remain in it for life. Many of them begin as children in their ninth or tenth year, and continue, while their limbs will bear them about, and their eyesight is good enough to detect the objects of their quest. They are usually so soiled and begrimed that it is hard to distinguish the young from the old, unless they be small children, and even these have the look of premature age.
ROUTES OF CHIFFONNIERS.
They set out on their rounds between nine and ten o’clock in the evening, with a large willow basket strapped to their back, carrying in one hand a stick about a yard long, terminating in a hook, and in the other hand a lantern fastened to a piece of wire, so that they can swing it over the ground, and discover if there be anything they want. They pay particular attention to the little heaps of rubbish, made by the citizens before their doors, from the miscellaneous refuse of the household. After these have been raked by the rag-pickers, they are carried away by the scavengers’ carts. The pickers-up of unconsidered trifles never waste any time or space. They understand the exact distance from one point to another, always moving in straight lines, and taking in everything at a glance. Their vision is like that of hawks. They very rarely miss anything, or confound one object with another. They know bone from wood, and coal from glass, though it be half buried in the mire, and transfer every desirable fragment to their basket by means of their hooks with unerring accuracy, and by a single curve movement. It is astonishing how quickly and thoroughly they can hunt through one of the little dirt-piles. After quitting it, it is as valueless as the notes of a western wildcat bank, or a second-hand tombstone.
They never encroach upon each other’s domain, for they have their particular districts marked out, and generally visit them unaccompanied, darting about in silence, without the least indirectness, dawdling, or delay. They are certainly among the most industrious and indefatigable of laborers, if not the tidiest and most fastidious. They go forth in all sorts of weather, night after night, month after month, and year after year; patient, plodding, never discouraged while there is the slightest chance of finding a bit of leather or scrap of paper in the entire capital. So dexterous are they by long practice in the use of their hook, that they very seldom employ their fingers.
The night-wandering gypsies have the highest expectations from the gutters, where they are often delighted by securing a prize that yields them a whole centime,—one fifth of a cent,—and when they discover what will sell for a sou, they deem themselves blessed. There, cigar stumps, remnants of shoes, and broken bottles, are sometimes found, and are enough to cheer the heart of the rag-picker for weeks after fortune has ceased to smile upon his nocturnal gleaning. At long intervals a whole bottle dawns upon his vision, and he is as much rejoiced as an American would be if he should stumble upon a treasure of gold buried in his cellar.
DELIGHTED WITH A BOTTLE.
The pleasures of the bottle have a new interpretation with the chiffonniers of Paris. The phrase has a literal, not a figurative meaning with them, and I have heard them speak of finding half a dozen bottles in one week, as Ponce de Leon might have spoken of discovering the fountain of eternal youth.
I remember to have bound one of the guild to me in eternal gratitude by presenting him with a few empty wine bottles, as he passed my lodgings one stormy night. He regarded me as a gentleman of munificent income; he went away, I am persuaded, with a semi-conviction that I owned the Bank of France.
One would hardly think that the poor devils of the hook and basket would attempt to have any comfort in this life. But they do; for they are French, and must have dissipation and distraction, however humble and homely it be. After midnight, they visit the cheap wine-shops, where they can purchase as much wine as they want for two or three sous. They smoke their pipes there, and have very pleasant chats, manifesting a gayety in their rags and dirt that only a Gaul can feel. They even get mildly tipsy sometimes, but usually start off with their baskets before daylight, make another round, and then sell their collection to the rag and refuse merchants who are their regular customers. The contents of their baskets, holding some two bushels, will bring from twenty cents to one dollar in our money, the average rate being from forty to fifty cents.