HARBOR BOTTLE-OHS

Hokitika Guardian, 30 March 1921, Page 3

HARBOR BOTTLE-OHS

A QUAINT SYDNEY TRADE

SYDNEY, March 7

Most peculiar occupations are followed on Sydney harbour and one of the most peculiar is that of marine liottle-

At first glance the surface of the harbour does not appear a promising field of exploitation in this respect, but the fact is that the men live by this means all the year round. Their principle equipment is a boat and a capacity to rise early.

A good quarter of the city’s 800,000 people live across tho water, and trav el by ferry boat. During the evening, say from 7 p.m. till midnight, the more festive Nortli Siders are going home, and n certain proportion carry with them, from hotel bar and club, a quantity of bottled, liquor, The temptation to drink in comfort on the com-, fornble, cool, mid roomy ferrfw

great—and the “empties” naturally go over board and bobb about until morn-

With the daylight come the haryhour bottle-ohs—keen-eyed watermen I who can see a bottle a. bobbing half a ! mile off. They (lo not go out into I the harbour, hut creep along the shores : and into tne innumerable little bays, into which the bottles drift. Each man has his own particular round, woe betide the covetous one who comes butting in on a regular round. Many j unpleasant things will happen to him—his boat will he sunk or set adrift, he will become involved in collisions, and j he may even receive a crack on the , head from a hefty oar. j These bottle-ohs make a comfortable living. They gather anything from j twelve to twenty dozen bottles a day, in addition to all sorts of flotsam and jetsam of more or less value. A wellknown case is that of a former business man in the city, who being a German, was forced abruptly into retiremenf in 1914, but not interned. His family was starving, so he obtained a boat and became a picker-up of unconsidered trifles on the harbour. As a result he kept his family in comfort.