The merchants have large magazines in the quarters frequented by the chiffonniers, and employ scores of men and women to assort and arrange their unwholesome purchases. The air of the magazines is vitiated and poisoned by the exhalations from mouldy leather, greasy rags, filthy bones, and repulsive rubbish generally. How those whose duty it is to attend to this obnoxious business escape contagion is by no means clear. It may be they are so defiled and encrusted with dirt themselves, that they cannot receive any harm from what they handle, though if they were neat in habit, or if their pores were open, they could not fail to be made sick unto death by breathing such tainted air. They are advanced in years, or infirm in body, having belonged, most of them, to the rag-picking profession when they were younger, and in sounder health. They prefer the more active, open-air duties, but are forced by circumstances and their condition into this lower grade of offensive industry. For twelve hours of labor a day, they are paid about thirty cents, and on this, in some unaccountable way, they contrive to keep their wretched bodies and souls together.
HOMES OF THE RAG-PICKERS.
I ceased to wonder how the rag-pickers lived when I discovered where and under what surroundings they lived. Live indeed? Theirs is a satire upon life. It does not deserve the name of subsistence, or even vegetation, for subsistence and vegetation are at least natural and salutary. Few strangers in Paris ever see such miserable quarters as are the damp, dreary, and ill-ventilated cellars of the Quartier Mouffetard, in the neighborhood of the old Barrière des Deux Moulins, in which the chiffonniers reside. In those narrow and dismal streets, reminding me of the streets in the old Spanish towns, the sunshine is shut out, and the fresh breeze of heaven is unknown. In those vile dens, the unfortunate toilers herd together, frequently sleeping ten or twelve in a small apartment, regardless of age or sex, paying three or four sous a night for their detestable lodgings. Some of the aged and less impoverished couples pretend to keep house; but it is after so sorry a fashion that their homes would be unwelcome to a respectable beast.
The majority of the rag-pickers sleep where they can, and take their meals in the dismal cook-shops, eating whatever is given them, and asking no questions. Worthless dogs that have come to tragic ends are there served up for beef, and cats, whose nocturnal serenade has been suddenly brought to a close by the hurling of an unappreciative brick, are placed upon a rude table and labelled as mutton. Customers who work hard, and earn but three or four dollars a week, are not fastidious. Whatever satisfies the cravings of hunger is pronounced good, and where very little is charged, very little must be expected.
I busied myself one day in investigating the quarters of the chiffonniers, because I always feel an interest in the human family in its least favorable conditions; but what I saw did not induce me to repeat the experiment.
HASARD DE LA FOURCHETTE.
One of the cook-shops that I entered had a very remarkable way of feeding its patrons, combining the excitement of chance with practical advantage. The proprietor of the place purchases from the restaurants such scraps and fragments as are left upon the tables and in the kitchen, puts them in a large pot full of water, and submits them to a long boiling. The result, quite a savory soup, is placed on a table, and anybody, by paying two sous, has the privilege of thrusting a long iron fork into the kettle, and of eating whatever he can bring up from the bottom. Sometimes the handler of the fork is rewarded with a very tolerable piece of beef, mutton, chicken, goose-liver, or some genuine delicacy that may have been ordered at a fashionable restaurant in the Boulevards. Even if the fork come up without the hoped-for prize, the adventurer is entitled to a plate of the soup, relished none the less because the eater has had the boldness to risk his sous for something more substantial. This culinary game is called the fortune of the fork (hasard de la fourchette), and is much enjoyed by the chiffonniers. I felt a curious interest in it myself, though I lacked the relish of hunger, and consequently the personal sympathy properly belonging to the entertainment.
The rag-pickers gathered about the table on which the large kettle stood, watching with eager eyes the fellow who handled the fork, and made a dash for the invisible morsel he so craved. When he brought up nothing, he showed no disappointment, but laughed with the throng; and when he was lucky enough to lift upon the tines what is called in Paris a bonne bouche, they applauded him with hands and voice, as if he had obtained a grand victory. The rude and dingy cook-shop, with the soiled and tattered rag-pickers in the centre, and the burly proprietor in the background, made a picture which Doré would have been pleased to draw.