JUST JUNK

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 411, 24 March 1904, Page 8

JUST JUNK

WHEN the South street man wt* asked: "What ia junk?" ha oonIsntrated his attention on It for a H|»i and said: "Junk is anything _ |ttd everything that i* supposed to fee worn out and useless, but really Isn't. It is stuff that, having lived tone life, comes here and begins another. For instance, here are these •hip's sails. They've lived their Ufa •board ships, they've bees afi ova* flhe oceans, and now they are ia aetlla down on land.*' __ y *What will they do?" ""fWRI »** r "£e useful as coverings for goBoV Kts' materials, or for wagons and their goods, or they may go to sea •gain on small schooners." • "What good is this old rope?" : "Some of that is bought by *«*> , Kels. Such as is too far gone for inch use goes into paper stock." "Well, now here's an old Spanish Bell, big and fine toned. Whsre did you get that and what will yon do frith it?" "That is from a Porto Bican ehnreb. it -teas brought in as old metal, for the tongue was out. Still, it was Msy to put a tongue la, end bo the Buty was saved." "And which of our offlceM etote ft •lurch bell?" • ' "It wasn't stolen, II was lying in • storehouse there where our troops fotnto Porto P.ico. It had hung in |hs belfry of a church that had been |orn down, I think." . "What use is this rusty old stain?" • "There are some boats that buy Bathing except second-hand material. Bo those chains sell to them. When they are too rus*y they- go for oM Iron."

"What sort of psopsa fkrs gbase lamps and lanterns?" "Those are ships* lanterns, < Stealthy people bay them for curios." - "What Is the di*erene» between fapk and antiques?" You'll hare to ask the Fifth imam 'art dealere' about thai. Many and many a battered bit they - get from us for a song and sell for a fancy figure. But you're In the jrrronp shop to learn about junk. Oo "round and see the man in Trent Street. He's got the greatest eolleelioQ In New York. This place is half Ship chandler's." -- 9 "Junk, mir; no, sir, this isn't a Junk ■hop. Psr from it, sir," said the man |a Front street. "A junk dealer is a fftan who goes about in a small boat sad buys cast-off things from Teasels. ffunk dealers hare to obtain licenses, and the police eas seareh their plaoes at any time." "Well, what would you call this ea> tftfcnshment?" 1 (The Front street man thought for ■While before he replied: '1 would caß it a curio emporium. 1 * "Sol And may I ask what in the fltHfd you do with guns that are as Wm sad as rusty as these in a curio emporium?" Those are not so bad as they look. QThey can be cleaned up and will MB, fust as well as they did during the civil war." 9 "Who boys them?" "All sorts of behind-the-age people. Take one of those guns into the mountains of Virginia, an it will ke modern. They're still using flintlocks there. AU through South America and Africa there's a sale for sueh guns, and in many parts of Asia, too. I sold 200 of them last week to a man in the China trade. His firm has eight ships,' and they're arming the crews against the pirates that now infest Chinese waters." "But some of these are rusted to pieces." "Well, they either serve as curios or a» old iron. When they're too bad for anything else, they are melted down Ami begin hfe over again." "What guns are those with the lons baiUfa?" # "Aseb. Not See the broad butts. Thtv seem senseless, but there's a gcKxi reason for them. They're made like that so that the weapons won't sink n the sand when being loaded. This weapon with the enormously thick barrel is an elephant gun. It weigkfc 25 pounds, and is made so thick «n order to lessen the force of the recoil from the heavy charge of powder. You see that it's in perfect condition. ** A man rushed in with it the day before yesterday. I didn't think anything of it; wouldn't even give him two dollars. He said he would leave it with me anyhow. Well, that gun turned out to be the very w&a»on a Montdak (If. J.) man was

lookingr far. He was delighted with it, and when I charged him sl2 he paid me five dollars on account to bind the bargain. He's going to mount it on a stand in his hall, and «v««n people seem to hare any doubts about his stories of hunting big game la Afilca he can show them the eleph.ini gun. "This cannon here I believe t" be the <;!.'efct in the country. It is made cf fine bronze, ana the date on it is 1631. We got it from Porto Kico." After duly admiring the old eanuor. there was a tour of discovery that ■ xtmded all over the warehouse, tvbere, heaped up from floor to ceil- .•:.,-. throughout the five stories, was wi.at at first appeared to be the moat ..luazing aggregation of rubbish ever assembled under one roof.

This first impression was hardly accurate, however. In spite of cobwebs and dust and the presence of a vast quantity of utterly useless things, the place was full of treasures. Bales and boxes and packing cases full of sea stores of all sorts that had never been opened were scat•cr?;l all about. 3

"They don'* know what they've got," said the solitary salesman of the establishment, who acted as guide, referring to the proprietors. "They throw these things in here any old way and then forget about them. They're too busy downstairs making heaps of money to think about them."

Confusion was everywhere absolute. Not the least attempt at classification had been made. Here was a gun carriage in sections; a pile of old uniforms; a packing case three-quar-ters full of army caps; a mass of Japar.eof l:ly bulbs that had spoiled; a quarter of a lon of soap; a great q'.'.anti;'- of shoe blacking; a box of white hats, such as are used in the na'-y: boxes of tinned sausages, more boxes of jams and jellies; crates of fruit that had dried and mildewed; heaps of boots that had never been worn and probably never would be, so compactly had the spiders bound tlic-nt with their cobwebs. A mound of books was on one of the lioors, a mound of photographs on another, and in a Mttie room by themselves a collection of paintings, some very well framed and some not framed at all. Of course, one of them was "an old master." This collection was spoken of with awe by the salesman. "They're all masterpieces," he said. "That big one there's a Van Dyck." As the exploration extended the guide quite lost his bearings, and the discoveries were as real to him as to the reporter. "What's in this barrel?" be queried, striking a match and peering down at some shining black stuff. "Oh, yes!" he exclaimed, suddenly recollecting. "It's gunpowder—enough to blow the whole place to kingdom come." Heaps of loose ammunition were encountered at various points, and as there are several cats, to say nothing of rats, roaming about, an explosion would not be very suprising under the circumstances, the cartridges being of the detonating variety. "Why don't you establish some kind of order here?" asked the writer, wiping away a veil of cobwebs tE-i.'u nad fallen about his face.

"No time," said the guide. "There are only three of us in this big place."

"I'd never rest till I found out what I had and arranged it after a fashion, the clothing in one place and the provisions in another, and so on." "Then you wouldn't make so much money as the boss," responded the guide.

"But there's such a deal here that's absolutely going to waste." "There's plenty more where it came from." "Where did It come from?"

"Government auction sales, mostly; then sheriffs' sales and private auction sales. There was a fire at the navy yard not long ago, and everything in the building was sold at auction. Some of the goods were damaged and some were not injured at all. The government doesn't stop to look it over very closely, I reckon. It cleans out and puts in new goods. Then, when a warship has been cruising for five months or so, and arrives in port, all the stores she has remaining are condemned and sold at auction.

"All aorta of things some to us from the government. For instance, we bought 80,000 swords not long ago that had been stored at Governors island ever since the civil war. We had lively competition in buying them, too." -Where will they got"

. "Men belonging to seeret societies will use them up. They're in fine order, and in spite of competition putting the price up we'll make a good thing out of them."—N. Y. Times.

Rapports Dr. Koeh'e Theory.

Prof. Bsumgarten, of Lubig, says a Berlin dispatch to the New York Times, supports Dr. Koch's theory that borine tuberculosis is not communicable to human beings. Prof. Baumgarten describes a series of experiments mad« by Dr. Botikansky 20 years ago, whei patients suffering from incurable tumors were inoculated with bovine tuberculosis germs in the hope that one disease might combat the other. Not a single patient was infected with tuberculosis. Dr. Baumgarten believes that bovine and human tuberculosis are not essentially different, but that the bacilli suffer modification in the bodies they inhabit. Laktwam. First Golfer—He doesn't play verj| well, but he says he's too busy t«| give any more time to practice. 1 Second Golfer—Oh! Well, if neglects golf to attend to his bust* ness what can he expect?— Puck.