EARNING A LIVING

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, 14 November 1927, Page 9

EARNING A LIVING

WEIRD OCCUPATIONS.

In England alone, there are over 16,000 different ways of earning a living. This is- revealed in a new dictionary of occupations which has taken statistical experts at the Ministry of Labour over five years to compile. Some of these occupations, writes a ’ Daily Chronicle ” representative, have the quaintest titles imaginable. The following are typical specimens:—Mrs. shifter, Bander, Higgler, eye filer. A “Mrs. shifer” is a woman who works at a shifting machine in a jute factory, while a “bander” is concerned with the making of cigar bands. "To higgle” is to hawk or peddle provisions. The mysterious “eye filer” is not a gentleman who files human eye, but one of thousands in the country who turn an honest penny by filing eyes in needles. Then there is the “babbitter”—not, as might be imagined, a disciple of Sin clair Lewis's famous book—hut simply a worker in babbitt, a specialised form of metal.

The “cuff bottom holder,” the “whipthong maker,” the “quill pen cutter,” the “ramrod grinder,’ and the “chair nail stamper”—other quaintly worded callings taken at random from the Census—are, perhaps, self-explanatory. Other strangely named jobs are those of the “petty chapman,” the “pikelet seller,” the “rulleyman,” and the “bumboat man.”

All these rae regularly followed callings. A bumboat, for instance, can be either a scavenger’s boat for removing refuse fro mships or a boat for conveying provisions, fruit, etc., for sale to vessels in port or off shore. The new dictionary of occupations is the outcome of a resolution passed at a conference of statistical experts from all parts of the Empire in London in 1920. It will consist of over 500 pages.