Ragman

Since ancient times, people have tried to use discarded items in the second round. In India, throughout its history, the role of the garbage man (and ragman) has been played by people belonging to the untouchable caste. In Egypt - "zabolniki" belonging to the Coptic community. In medieval Europe, as a rule, slaves, urban unemployed, immigrants from villages, immigrants without livelihoods became rag-rappers.

So in France in different eras the craft of the ragman had its own name: for example, in the 13th century - “loqueti`ere” (“patchwork”), then - “pattier” (from “patte”: “paw”), then - “drillier” (“Driller” - the one who bites into the garbage heap), and finally, “chiffonnier” (rag or rag: “chiffe” - an old rag). In the XIX-XX centuries. in France, rag-makers were also called "stickies."

In the French province of Brittany, rags were an important component of the local economy, where the collection of old rags began to flourish from the 16th century. Already in 1828, the Cote du Nord factory processed more than 450 tons of rags, and 232 tons in Finistere ^[4] .

By the 19th century, this activity took on a wide scope in Paris and New York .

In France, in 1884, there were about 50,000 rags, of which 7050 worked in Paris and 2000 in its suburbs ^[1] . The Parisian ragman earned 3 francs per day, and the entire rag industry - up to 7 million francs per year.

Parisian rags were divided into categories ^[1] :

• people engaged in rag fishing only in the evening and at night as extra income to the main craft (eg students) - “tiffins”, “chineurs”;

• “True” rag-earners who earned bread only by this occupation - “rouleurs”;

• rag-racers allowed in rag-collecting homes before it is thrown out - “placiers”;

• large buyers of raw materials from the three above categories.

The Parisian rags lived in colonies on the outskirts of Paris. These ghettos had very harmful air. Ragmen earned little, felt constant need, eked out a miserable existence. Often, the craft passed by inheritance.

Due to their kind of activity, rag-makers were considered the “lower caste”, the bottom of society. Among them, bandits and prostitutes often came across. They abused alcohol ^[5] .

The rag in the Russian Empire most often became the urban poor, declassed elements and peasants who went fishing in the cities. According to the ethnographers Emil Egger and Anatoly Bakhtiyarov, in Russia there were two types of rags ^[1] :

• a ragman who walked around yards and acquired various kinds of junk - he was also called a bone man ^[3] ;

• “Hookman” - who received his goods for free, looking for him in garbage pits and dunghills.

The hookman was the youngest member of the rag corporation. He lived, as a rule, on the outskirts of the city, taking off the “corner” for one and a half rubles a month. Having changed into an old ragged rags, the hookman, with the help of a hook mounted on a pole, looked for rubbish in garbage pits, dumps and manure heaps. On average, a hookman earned 50 kopecks per day, and 15 rubles a month. In 1895, the capital’s hookers “fished” 2 million rubles of garbage from the garbage pits ^[3] .

The ragman collected rags both for cash and for exchange (usually in villages) for children's sweets and “haberdashery goods”: ribbons, mirrors, soap, crosses, beads.

St. Petersburg rags with huge bags walked around the yards "to scream", buying rag and bone goods.

Ragmen worked as cooperatives: for example, in the Russian capital there was a whole quarter of rag racers.

In the slum area of ​​St. Petersburg near the Sennaya Market (the so-called "Vyazemskaya Lavra") there was a building called the "Rag Wing" ^{[6] [7]} .

In 1895, in St. Petersburg, there were 51 large rag masters (maclacs or rag aces).

Artel, as a rule, lived with her master. Maklak gave ragmen money to purchase rags and other raw materials. Then all the goods at the “market” price were sold to maclac. The ragman’s gain was the difference between the “market” price and the purchase price.

Evaluation of bones and rags was carried out very conditionally: the buyer took a bale in his hand, determining its cost by weight (weight). The bottles were surrendered.

On average, the ragman collected about 10 pounds of rags, 8 pounds of bones and up to 300 bottles per week (worth about 25 rubles). Giving also the owner of the artel money for a table and an apartment, the ragman earned from 10 to 15 rubles a month.

Small rags, having accumulated from 50 to 100 pounds of raw materials, resold it to resellers (usually on Saturdays). The same, in turn, collecting up to 1000 pounds of rags, also sold it to large buyers who collected 15,000 pounds of raw materials and more.

Maklaki brought their goods to the Nizhny Novgorod Fair , where they entered into contracts for the supply of rags to paper factories.

Prices of 1886 in St. Petersburg for rags by grades per pood ^{[1] [3]} :

Merchants Vargunin , who owned the Neva Stationery Factory near St. Petersburg, spent 150,000 rubles, buying for her rags throughout Russia.

The paper factory of V. Krylova (St. Petersburg) annually bought 50,000 poods of bast shoes from the Vologda province (60 cents per pound) from rags as raw materials ^[1] .

Over time, after a period of prosperity, rapping subsided and was banned in most European cities. The development of industry and the introduction of new technologies has led to the depreciation of most items of "garbage" assortment.

So, since 1865, enterprises began to introduce technologies for producing paper from wood. After 1900, the cost of rags and old paper fell sharply. They began to use rags only for the production of premium paper, and its content in the paper pulp did not exceed a tenth. The price of natural hair (1879-1902), which was used in the production of pads, decreased by 60% due to the replacement of hair with linen. The phosphate extracted from the bowels of the earth displaced its bone counterpart. The bone was also replaced with celluloid (plastic) in the manufacture of small items: buttons, chess pieces, etc. Cheaper production and delivery of natural raw materials allowed the industry to significantly free itself from the "products" of rag ^[4] .

Industry has become more demanding on the quality of materials and substances obtained from landfills.

Environmental organizations played a role in the fight against rag-raisers, demanding to ban rag-raid due to their non-observance of sanitary norms when they procured and stored their goods. So, in 1920, a plague epidemic broke out in Paris, called the “rag plague” ^[4] .

Toward the end of the 20th century, rag racers in Europe “died out”, but instead a new class of garbage collectors appeared - poor immigrants who agreed to any work ^{[4] [8]} .

In Russia, at present, the role of hookers is partly performed by the poorest urban strata of the population, homeless people , and migrant workers ^[8] . Here there are their own “castes” of sorters: sorters of non-ferrous metals, receive 6,000 rubles per month, paper - up to 4,000, glass containers - 1,000 per month (2013) ^[8] .

• Virtual exhibition dedicated to rags (French) . Mheu. Date of treatment March 19, 2016.