You may have heard that a ragpicker who has risen to the rank of a boss in his trade, and so remains at home in a shop and goes out with his hook no more, is called an ogre.  A woman attaining this dignity is called an ogress.  The terms are not idle ones.  Like many of the words and phrases of slang they are based on the clearest conception of the merits of the case.  An ogre or ogress without a daughter, real or adopted, lacks the first requisite for doing a successful business.  The ogre or ogress has his or her especial workmen, who go out and scour the streets, bringing home their load, and being paid in board and lodging simply.  When there is a daughter in the business the workmen are her husbands.  The process of divorce is easy, and consists simply in the ragpicker’s returning with his hotte (la hotte is the basket which hangs on the back) to some other ogre or ogress after his daily or nightly tour of the streets.  Marriage among the ragpickers of Paris is so rare an incident as to be virtually no part of their plan of life.

The Paris ragpicker is seldom seen in the streets by day:  his most profitable season is the night.  And what meagre pickings are his at the best! what despicable bits of paper, of twine, of coal-refuse, of rejected food, bones, potato-skins, he gathers carefully in his hoard!  A bit of paper no larger than a postage-stamp he saves.  A crust of bread no bigger than a walnut is a prize, for rare are the households in Paris in which a crust that is large enough to be visible to the naked eye is allowed to be thrown into the street.  Standing and watching this poor wretch prodding in a gutter after hopeless infinitesimals, I have pictured to myself what emotions would surge through his breast if a New York garbage-barrel were to be set down before him.  I am not sure he would be able to refrain from fainting away at sight of such a mine of wealth.  Happy ragpicker of New York who takes his morning stroll and his lordly pick from the contents of the teeming barrels our servants set out on the pavement for him! He does not have to work at night:  he is a sort of prince, compared to his Paris fellow.  If a Paris ragpicker could have the monopoly of the barrels in a single block between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, I am convinced he would retire from business at the end of ten years with an independent fortune—­that is, if with the New York barrels he could have the Paris market and live on Paris fare.  It is an old story that in Paris nothing is wasted.  The very mud in the streets is gathered up and sold.  There is a market for everything.