RAGS IMPORTED. 279 



But there comes a time in the existence of old clothes, 

 whatever the rank of life in which they started, when they 

 are too old, and patched, and faded, and threadbare, either 

 for the dealers or the pawnbrokers. In fact they are no 

 longer clothes but " rags," and in this condition they find their 

 way to the rag-shops, either directly, or through the medium 

 of the dust-cart. 



It has been stated that not more than two-fifths of 

 the rags in England are preserved, and manufacturers are 

 consequently obliged to import large quantities, an expense 

 which might be entirely spared to the country if people were 

 more thrifty. 



The London Ragged School at one time started some 

 of its boys with four trucks, with the result that in nine 

 months they had collected eighty-two tons of rags and other 

 refuse, and 50,000 bottles. It is reckoned that each 600 

 houses would well supply one truck ; but the Lancashire 

 famine diverted all the rags in another direction, and the 

 attempt to collect them does not seem to have been made 

 again. In former days every thrifty housewife had a " rag- 

 bag/' into which were put not only rags, but all the snippings 

 which result from the process of "cutting-out," and are 

 now too often consigned to the fire. Some countries alto- 

 gether forbid the export of rags, and our chief supplies are 

 drawn from Italy and Germany, of which we are large 

 customers. 



All old woollen clothes come to the soil at last, being 

 extremely valuable as manure. The early broccoli grown 

 in the west of Cornwall thrive better on woollen rags than 

 on anything else ; and hops of a certain quality cannot, it 



