1827.] On Dust. 609 



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, arid 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.* 



Perhaps the reader may have never witnessed the ejection of a dust cart : 

 presuming he has not, I will endeavour to give htm 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 hVd a Maid" indicating the 

 approach of Jue 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 pro- 

 fessional 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. Jowler, 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 



* It was a dispute between a dustman and a sifter, as to which had the most right- 

 ful 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 sifier had realized sufficient 

 property to enable her to be proprietress of three houses. 

 M.M. New Series VOL. IV. No. 24. 4 I 



