268 THE WORLD'S LUMBER ROOM. 



compelled to own, as one must, that she manages matters 

 in a much neater and altogether less offensive way than 

 we do. 



Throughout the East, scavenging, even in the towns 

 and villages, is left chiefly to her good offices, as we have 

 seen, and many a village on the hills about the Bosphorus 

 owes such cleanliness as it possesses to the occasional 

 heavy falls of rain. 



In Ceylon, the Chandalas, who belonged to the lowest 

 caste, were degraded to the office of scavengers and carriers 

 of corpses ; and in the legends of Buddha, the chandala is 

 represented as " one born in the open air, his parents not 

 being possessed of a roof; he lies among the pots when his 

 mother goes to cut firewood," and, says Manu, " he can 

 never be relieved from bondage or emancipated by a master." 

 In 437 B.C. the nichi-chanddlas are specially named as 

 " cemetery-men ; " but a couple of centuries later cremation 

 had been introduced, and their services were no longer re- 

 quired in the cemeteries. 



Not very much above the chandala in the social scale, 

 come the Paris chiffonniers, who form a class as much apart 

 from the rest of the community as if they were separated by 

 the laws of caste. The chiffonnier, or " ragman," no more 

 confines his attention exclusively to " rags " than the dustman 

 does to genuine " dust." He is a by no means romantic or 

 attractive-looking individual, and it is difficult at first sight 

 to understand why he should be such a favourite character 

 with French novelists, and how he acquired the halo of ro- 

 mance which surrounds him at the present day. According 

 to the popular legend, every chiffonnier is a nobleman, or 



