“Dead babies a few years ago were not an uncommon occurrence.”

Trash has always been full of treasure and those who won contracts to remove offal from districts of Brooklyn in the 1800s checked the refuse closely for rixhes before chucking it, because you never knew what was going to turn up. And it was no different in London. From the July 4, 1886 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“‘You would be surprised,’ sad a well known offal contractor to an Eagle reporter recently, ‘at the large number of valuables found in the city’s dumping grounds. Although the men in charge of the dumps deny that anything of value is ever found, I can vouch that they don’t always tell the truth. Miscellaneous articles, such as silver teaspoons, knives and forks, shoes and clothing, in good and bad condition, are picked up daily, but it frequently happens that gold watches and diamonds are among the valuables found. Dead babies a few years ago were not an uncommon occurrence. In the government grounds ten cents is charged for each load dumped. Articles of an unusual character are only found in the ashes and swill refuse. Ladies washing dishes will drop rings in the swill, and by the time they have missed them the swill will be on its way either to the dumping grounds or the piggeries. Diamonds, from earrings and rings, are lost in the same manner.

In London, the contract for examining ashes and swill is awarded to the highest bidder. The method employed by the contractor to ascertain whether any articles of value are contained in the rubbish is a novel one. The carts are dumped on a screen, which, after having become filled, is elevated into the air. A dozen men dressed in rubber suits, without pockets, are set to work on the screen. These men go over the ashes and the offal carefully, and in case anything valuable is found it is turned over at once to the contractor and superintendent. As the workers wear pocketless clothing they can secure nothing about their persons. After all the ashes have been thoroughly screened they are covered and a new lot examined.”

“I have no prejudice against horse steaks and roasts if well prepared.”

In the late 1800s cheap horse meat was often surreptitiously sold in place of more expensive cow flesh. The Department of Agriculture was on the case, although its chief chemist didn’t mind eating a pony now and then. From the October 11, 1899 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“Washington D.C.--For the past week a strong odor of decaying animal matter has assailed the nostrils of persons passing the fine building on lower Fourteenth Street, occupied as a chemical laboratory for the Department of Agriculture. By following up the scent to-day it was found to proceed from one of the ground floor rooms of the building where half a dozen aproned chemists were engaged in dissecting the carcass of a roan horse, which a few weeks ago did service as an important part in the wagon express outfit. The animal was pretty generally dismembered, steaks having been cut from both flanks and various portions of flesh from the legs and sides removed, while a string of freshly stuffed sausage links suspended on a nail on the wall showed that some of the meat had been prepared after the style of beef sausage.

Inquiry of Dr. Wiley, the chief chemist of the Department of Agriculture, developed the fact that the government experts are conducting a series of interesting experiments for the purpose of determining just what uses the horse can be made to serve as human food. The department does not intend to start a propaganda campaign in favor of the consumption of American horse meat, and so far as known no such food is offered for sale in this country; yet there has always been more or less suspicion as to the origin of certain prepared meals which we import from abroad in large quantities every year. It is to make our inspectors thoroughly familiar with the appearance and taste of the flesh of this animal that the present experiments are being undertaken. Dr. Wiley said:

‘In order to satisfy ourselves on this point we directed the local health authorities to secure for us a horse that had died from natural causes. We got the animal and now are in the midst of our experiments. Samples have been taken from different parts of the body, corresponding with certain cuts usually selected by butchers. We are putting them through chemical and microscopic processes, and noting the changes from time to time and comparing them with genuine beef.

‘The popular prejudice against horse flesh as food,’ continued Dr. Wiley, ‘is probably not well founded, as there is no reason to believe that it is not quite as edible as beef flesh. This aversion exists, however, and it is only proper that it should be sold under its own name and not in the guise of some other flesh food.

‘So far as I am concerned I have no prejudice against horse steaks and roasts if well prepared. I have no doubt whatever it figures quite extensively on the bills of fare in the cheap Paris restaurants, though it is not known by the name of horse. I went  to several Paris restaurants of the cheaper kind for the express purpose of examining their meats. At one place I was served with soup, vegetables, a roast and a pint of wine, for which I paid one franc–20 cents. Naturally this must have been the cheapest food they could purchase, and while the roast was quite palatable, I often had the suspicion that I was dining off the remains of some old charger.”

“Many a farmer’s wife would gladly pay 25 cents a month merely for the luxury of hearing a neighbor’s voice at will.”

The invention of the telephone promised to make the world smaller, but service for rural Americans wasn’t easy to come by initially. An article from the August 1, 1901 Brooklyn Daily Eagle about the efforts of farmers to enjoy this modern miracle:

“The loneliness of farm life, which has been considerably reduced by rural mail delivery, has been still further lessened in a number of Western communities by the introduction of the telephone.

The chief obstacle to the wider use of this great modern convenience has been the high rates charged by the regular companies. Several plans to obviate this difficulty have been tried. The simplest is the actual building of a line and the installation of a small circuit by those who wish to use it.

Groups of Western farmers have themselves cut and set the poles and strung the wires for their own line, and after buying receivers, insulators, batteries and other material, have divided the cost and shared the expense of the maintenance.

Lately another plan has been tried with excellent results in a number of Wisconsin towns. A stock company is formed of those who desire to use the service. The shares sell for a uniform price of $50, the average cost for installing each telephone in a good exchange; but no stock is sold to any one except those who rent a ‘phone,’ and only one share is allocated for each receiver in use.

The charges are so regulated that the stockholders receive a dividend of 1 per cent a month. This is applied to the reduction of the regular rental. In one of the Wisconsin towns, for instance, the rent for a phone in a business office is $2.25 a month, and in the residence $1 a month. The dividends averages 75 cents a month, so that the actual cost to the ‘consumer’ is only $1.50 for a phone in an office and 25 cents for one in the home. This is less than half the usual cost.

Many a farmer’s wife, tied to her work and cut off from social opportunities, would gladly pay 25 cents a month merely for the luxury of hearing a neighbor’s voice at will; and the farmer himself, if he is alert, finds constant advantage in closer connection with his markets.”

From the May 19, 1877 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“The inmates of the Lunatic Asylum were favored with a hop last evening. Two musicians furnished the music. About three hundred patients, male and female, were present, and enjoyed themselves for nearly two hours. Order and decorum were observed during the evening.”

From the January 16, 1880 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“A young man in Bellevue Hospital, this city, is undergoing treatment for grafting his middle left hand finger to the spot where his nose used to be, with the intention of eventually amputating the finger and transforming it into a nose. He lies in the new surgical ward, with his hand immovably fixed to his face.”

From the April 2, 1844 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“Among the passengers on board of the packet ship Yorkshire, just arrived, are a giant, standing nearly eight feet in his boots; a giantess, about seven feet in height, and a dwarf twenty-three inches tall, or thereabout, being three inches shorter than the famous Tom Thumb. The giant and giantess are man and wife, and will make their first appearance at Barnum’s Museum.”

From the December 23, 1901 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“Not content with ordinary ski-running and jumping, the officers in the Swedish army, keen and good sportsmen as they are, have recently introduced a novel idea. They have taken up ardently a form of skiing in which they slide on skis behind trained horses that pull them at full gallop over the snow.”