admired, enabled him to gain a livelihood.
His title-deeds had been lost or stolen, and so
he was bereft of everything he possessed.
He had talents, and such as would have been
profitably available had he known how to
use them for this new purpose; but he did
not; he was misdirected; he made fruitless
efforts, in his want of experience; and he was
now starving. As he passed the great Dust-
heap, he gave one vague, melancholy gaze
that way, and then looked wistfully into the
canal. And he continued to look into the
canal as he slowly moved along, till he
was out of sight.

A Dust-heap of this kind is often worth
thousands of pounds. The present one was
very large and very valuable. It was in fact
a large hill, and being in the vicinity of small
suburb cottages, it rose above them like a
great black mountain. Thistles, groundsel, and
rank grass grew in knots on small parts which
had remained for a long time undisturbed;
crows often alighted on its top, and seemed
to put on their spectacles and become very
busy and serious; flocks of sparrows often
made predatory descents upon it; an old
goose and gander might sometimes be seen
following each other up its side, nearly mid-
way; pigs routed round its base,––and, now
and then, one bolder than the rest would
venture some way up, attracted by the mixed
odours of some hidden marrow-bone enveloped
in a decayed cabbage-leaf—a rare event, both
of these articles being unusual oversights of the
Searchers below.

The principal ingredient of all these Dust-
heaps is fine cinders and ashes; but as they are
accumulated from the contents of all the dust-
holes and bins of the vicinity, and as many
more as possible, the fresh arrivals in their
original state present very heterogeneous
materials. We cannot better describe them,
than by presenting a brief sketch of the
different departments of the Searchers and
Sorters, who are assembled below to busy
themselves upon the mass of original matters
which are shot out from the carts of the
dustmen.

The bits of coal, the pretty numerous results
of accident and servants' carelessness, are
picked out, to be sold forthwith; the largest
and best of the cinders are also selected, by
another party, who sell them to laundresses,
or to braziers (for whose purposes coke
would not do so well); and the next sort of
cinders, called the breeze, because it is left
after the wind has blown the finer cinders
through an upright sieve, is sold to the brick-
makers.

Two other departments, called the "soft-
ware " and the " hard-ware," are very
important. The former includes all vegetable
find animal matters––everything that will
decompose. These are selected and bagged
at once, and carried off as soon as possible, to
be sold as manure for ploughed land, wheat,
barley, &c. Under this head, also, the dead
cats are comprised. They are, generally, the
perquisites of the women searchers. Dealers
come to the wharf, or dust-field, every evening;
they give sixpence for a white cat, fourpence
for a coloured cat, and for a black one accord-
ing to her quality. The " hard-ware"
includes all broken pottery,––pans, crockery,
earthenware, oyster-shells, &c., which are sold
to make new roads.

"The bones " are selected with care, and
sold to the soap-boiler. He boils out the fat
and marrow first, for special use, and the
bones are then crushed and sold for manure.

Of " rags," the woollen rags are bagged and
sent off for hop-manure; the white linen rags
are washed, and sold to make paper, &c.

The "tin things" are collected and put into
an oven with a grating at the bottom, so that
the solder which unites the parts melts, and
runs through into a receiver. This is sold
separately; the detached pieces of tin are
then sold to be melted up with old iron, &c.

Bits of old brass, lead, &c., are sold to be
melted up separately, or in the mixture of
ores.

All broken glass vessels, as cruets, mustard-
pots, tumblers, wine-glasses, bottles, &c., are
sold to the old-glass shops.

As for any articles of jewellery,—silver
spoons, forks, thimbles, or other plate and
valuables, they are pocketed off-hand by the
first finder. Coins of gold and silver are
often found, and many " coppers."

Meantime, everybody is hard at work near
the base of the great Dust-heap. A certain
number of cart-loads having been raked and
searched for all the different things just
described, the whole of it now undergoes the
process of sifting. The men throw up the
stuff, and the women sift it.

"When I was a young girl," said Peg
Dotting––

"That's a long while ago, Peggy,"
interrupted one of the sifters: but Peg did not
hear her.

"When I was quite a young thing,"
continued she, addressing old John Doubleyear,
who threw up the dust into her sieve, "it was
the fashion to wear pink roses in the shoes,
as bright as that morsel of ribbon Sally has
just picked out of the dust; yes, and
sometimes in the hair, too, on one side of the head,
to set off the white powder and salve-stuff.
I never wore one of these head-dresses
myself––don't throw up the dust so high, John––
but I lived only a few doors lower down from
those as did. Don't throw up the dust so
high, I tell 'ee—the wind takes it into my
face."

"Ah! There! What's that? " suddenly
exclaimed little Jem, running, as fast as his
poor withered legs would allow him, towards
a fresh heap, which had just been shot down
on the wharf from a dustman's cart. He
made a dive and a search––then another––
then one deeper still. " I 'm sure I saw it!"
cried he, and again made a dash with both