PARIS CHIFFONNIERS. 269 



at least a gentleman, in disguise, or perhaps a learned pro- 

 fessor who has met with reverses, or has other reasons for 

 shunning the society of his equals. 



But the chiffonnier would never have held this position 

 in the public imagination had he, like the dustman, pur- 

 sued his unsavoury occupation in broad daylight. It is 

 his little dark lantern, and the fact that he does not emerge 

 from his place of retirement until nightfall, which have 

 combined to make him such an object of mystery and 

 interest. 



Like his Italian brother, and like most of the scavengers 

 employed by Nature, he appears with the owls and bats, 

 prowls about in the deserted, silent streets at the most 

 unearthly hours, and when the sun rises he vanishes into 

 his own quarter of the city, and is seen no more till night 

 returns again. 



We, who are accustomed to seeing the dust-carts on 

 their daily rounds, may well wonder what the chiffonnier 

 can find in the streets to fill his wicker-basket, and our 

 wonder will increase when we learn that, according to the 

 official returns, 7,050 men and women make their living 

 in this way in Paris, and earn, some of them, as much as 

 three francs a day. 



The fact is, that as regards its scavenging, the elegant 

 city of Paris has not hitherto been much in advance of 

 Constantinople or Cairo. All the dust and refuse of the 

 houses was simply thrown out into the street,* where the 

 chiffonnier rummaged in it at his leisure with an iron hook, 

 or a stick having a crooked nail at the end, carrying off 



* This was also the case in Rome until of late years. 



