AN INGENIOUS FRENCHMAN.

Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 29, 17 February 1863, Page 3

AN INGENIOUS FRENCHMAN.

! Once upon a time there was an old soldier, and he is alive yet, named Chiipellier. Discharged and poor, he had made it his business to live by what he could iind in the gutters of tho streets of Paris— horse-shoe nails, on lucky days perhnps even, a horse-shoe iron, toughened by much tramping, dear to the gunnaaker — poor scraps that, with help from old street jobs in opening carriag ■•• doors and so forth, enabled him to support life. But he sought advancement, and sorted from his calling into the service of a wholesale chiffonnier, whose baskets he sorted, and in whose wharehouse he arranged the stores, till he fell sick, overpowered by the smell of the articles in which his master traded, and Avent into hospital. When he came out he hired himself to a poultry merchant, and earned forty sous a day by filling lm ov/n mouth with peas and then putting them down the young pigeons' throats to fatten them suddenly. Lut while here he reflected on the fact that a poultry merchant could not get full price for his birds unless thpy were sold fresh killed on the morning of their arrival. However sweet a bird might he to the nose, every cook saw at a glance whether it was frtsh killed. How was that? he enquired. Oh, that is because the feet that are brilliant and black on the first day, become greyer and duller every day afterwards. The wise Chapellier having redeemed on this matter, made experiments, and invented a varnish that should keep the birds' legs brilliant and black for many days. There was a stir in the poultry .trade. Glorious was the and Chapcllier. who kept the secret, went about p-'nting the feet of the poultry fora fee of twelve and a half per cent, upon all sales 'of second day's stock. So he made money, but it was as an itinerant professor. His desire was to be head of an establisment. .He retired, therefore, from the claw-paintirig business having ojld his secret and his connection with the trade for forty pounds to a friend who has since made a fortune by it. What should he do? Would his old master the chiffonnier take him into partnership? He would ;;o and ask. He went a-nl asked. Not without:. a premium of two thousand pounds. Chapellicr could not afford that ; but, w^hile'he Tsvas in ( the warehouse he was struck by the great number of unsaleable pieces . of waste bread brought in the baskets of the rubbish hunters. Here was an idea — this is a -lesson for you. cook, and for you, .children — and this great man went out' an'd 'bought a dot. key and a cart; and having hired alaige room, went with his donkey'cart to all the cooks of schools and colleges and large establishments, to propose purchase from them of the stale scvaps of bre n .d they % had been used to throw into the street. They cordialy liailed the idea of a new perquisite. Chapcllier then bargained with the scullions of entinghouse-<, and with all the chief cooks cf the c-in , that he might 1 hav;e the dry crusts and scraps, destined to be thrown into t'.ie streets; he also contr.ictml wkh the scavengers for all the bread they found, nevertheless in the dust-holes and gutters- Having secured his monopoly, this laudable person took his stand one morning in the middle ol the chief market of Paris with a large placard on his hat. inscribed, il Bread crusts for sale." The Parisians keeps rabbits and the rabbits require bread as well as cabbage ; the chickens led for market al-o require bread crumbs. iManv domestic pets of the wealthy are in Paris denied meat under fhe idea ;hat it makes them smeil unpleasantly, and so, from one soiuce and another, came a large demand for breadcrusts, sold at t'iree pence a ba^ke;ful. In four months. he had throe horses and three waggons at work. In a few years, he sold his business and retired wiAi a competence. But it was only to come back in a month or two. A refinemrnt on his old idea had occurr-d to him, and he could not rest until he worked it out. He had seen enough of cooks and sausage-makers to observe the value of bread-crumbs for strewing over cutlets, nnd for other purposes Bread-crumbs made of stale bread pounded and grated fetched fourpenceper quait. He would bum his stale bread into bread crumbs, and se;l that at throe pence the heaped quart It was rather bard, to be sure, <.n his •successor, who w.;s iuined in the trade he had bought. But w^ut w sto be e. aid ? Bread-crumbs are not crusts, nnd Chapeliier was a great ciea.ure. As manufacturer of bread-crumbs, then, a rr>' hty trade was driven. Bat the brea.l of which theciumbs wcie made was some good and some bad. It would not. p..y to separate good from bad, but it would pav to establish ovens, and .ell the crusts I .iked in lump or -;y .r.d;for the use of cooks as "croutes au pot." Except at the best honsss-, these preserved scraps now find their way into almost every Parisian dish. The burnt bits and scrapings are pounded and sifted to bu sold to the .perfumer^,- who. will make them into tooth-powder. And thus the Pore Oha>- ) ellirr made his fortune. jS'ow, my good ("or bad, as the case niny be cook, ard my dear cbililron, you observe that a larj;e foitune is to be made by dry crusts and mouldy scraps of bread. And yet you throw them away! — All The Yea? Hound.