objects in these refuse piles. But when the police, not wishing this filth to remain longer in the public streets, had given out the cleaning to their agents, and the refuse, put into carts, was to be carried out into the open country, where the chiffoniers could freely fish in it to their hearts' content, then the latter complained that, though not reduced to starvation, that their business had been reduced, and that this industry was a right sanctioned by ancient usage, and like property, of which they could not be arbitrarily deprived. It is very curious that the proofs which they produced in this relation were quite identical with those which our country squires and nobles (Krautjunker), chiefs of corporations, guild-masters, tithe-preachers, members of faculties, and similar possessors of privileges, bring forward when any old abuses by which they profit, or other rubbish of the Middle Ages, must be cleared away, so that our modern life may not be infected by the ancient musty mould and exhalations. As their protests were of no avail, the chiffoniers attempted to oppose the reform of cleanliness by force, or get up a small counter-revolution, and that in connection with the old women called revendeuses, who had been forbidden to publicly sell on the quays or traffic in the evil-smelling stuff which they had bought from the chiffoniers. Then we beheld the most repulsive riot; the new hand-cars
