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‘A DAY WITH RAGS, TATTERS & CO.

stone came rattling out like a hailstorm on the floor,
while the rags fell over into the room beyond. There
they were gathered up and carried into the sorting
room. Seventeen women were at work on them with
their heads done up in colored handkerchiefs. One
of them told me she had worked there twenty years,
and turning to the daughter of her former employer,

 
  

  

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she spoke of the date of his death, and said, “I
remember it just as well as when I buried my six
‘children. He was a good friend to the poor.”

Each had seven barrels into which she sorted the
stuff: chips into one; old-paper into another, for
brown paper; and so on. Nothing usable is lost.
Each has a sort of table with sides like a box,
‘on which the rags are sorted; the bottom of it is
‘a sieve with large meshes to let the dust through, and
fastened to one side of some is a piece of scythe —a
‘dangerous, ugly-looking blade, across which they
‘draw any piece which has buttons or hooks, to cut
them off. The scene in this room is made to look
picturesque under the artists’ hands, but it is anything
but that to the senses of the women.

After this the rags are pitched into a cutter which
‘cuts them fine, and then another more fine; and
they pass the ordeal of a second revolving machine,
which sets the dust a-flying, and empties them into
another room; and of the debris at so late a stage of

STEPS PAPERWARD.

165

winnowing as this, and after so much sorting, there
is taken away every night from twelve to twenty-four
bushels. As this cataract of cotton goes flying over
into the room for it, it occasionally takes fire. Some-
times a match, in spite of all restrictions, as been
dropped into the waste by somebody, somewhere ;
and if it has escaped’ the keen eyes of the sorters
(and a wicked little match can keep out of sight), it
is quite sure to strike fire now.

   

   

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Next comes the preparation for cleansing with
lime water. The rags are pitched and crammed
down a crater or tunnel in the floor; and if I heard
aright, a man goes down into that dark, vile-smelling
pit, among them, and stows them away. The pit
proves, on going down-stairs, to be an immense iron
cylinder, like a gigantic barrel, more than the height
of a man in diameter, and three times that length.
There were two of them up in air, called “ rotary
bleachers”; they hold nearly a ton each, and every
night at five o’clock are filled: the lime water is put
in, and there they boil all night. When the rags are
done, workmen come with strong, long-handled imple-
ments and hook them out. ‘Mountains: of these
sopping, cooked rags loomed up in the cave-like
place ; and the floor was sloppy and slippery.

Before we went again to the upper regions we took
a look at the furnaces... Those semi-subterranean