What a queer home it is! It is on the outskirts of the city, far away
from the finer streets and buildings. A large space of ground is as
gray and dusty as an African or Western desert, and is broken by mounds
of ashes, some of which are only a few feet high, while others are
almost as high as houses,--quite as high, in fact, as the dismal little
shanties on the edge of the reservation in which the dust-man and his
fellows live. Other carts and other dust-men are constantly coming and
going, dumping one load and then returning to the city for another, and
as soon as a load is dumped it is attacked by a crowd of men, women and
children, who with shovels, rakes and hooks, turn it over and over, and
raise stifling clouds of dust.
The reader may think that the collections made by the dust-man are
valueless, but such is not the case.
There are more than 300,000 inhabited houses in London, consuming more
than 3,500,000 tons of coal a year, and besides the ashes from this
great quantity of fuel, the dust-man gathers the other refuse of the
houses. He is employed by a contractor, who agrees with the corporation
to remove the ashes, etc.
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