Life on the city dumping-grounds was generally a return to the survival of the fittest. There was exemplified poverty in its ugliest aspect. The Charles street dumps were miniature Alps of dusty rubbish rising out of the slimy ooze of a pestiferous and stagnant swamp, in which slinking, monstrous rats burrowed, where clammy bullfrogs gulped, over which poisonous flies hummed on summer days, and from which arose an overpowering, gassy nauseation. On a windy day, the air was filled by a whirling, odorous dust of ashes. It stirred every heap of rubbish into a pungent mass of rot. When the Irishmen brought the two-horse dump-carts, and swung their load on the heap, every dump-picker was sure to be smothered in a cloud of choking dust, as sticks, hoes, rakes, and fingers, in mad competition, sought whatever prize of rag, bottle, wood, or cinder came in sight. This was the neighborhood Gehenna, in which the Portuguese, Irish, and Polish dwellers thereabouts flung all that was filthy, spoiled, and odorous, whether empty cans, ancient fruit and vegetables, rats from traps, or the corpses of pet animals or birds. Pat, Tim, and I, in our search for fuel, met quite a cosmopolitan life on those ash-hills. There they were, up to their knees in filth, digging in desperation and competition, with hungry looks and hoarse, selfish growls, like a wolf pack rooting in a carcass: the old Jew, with his hand-cart, the Frenchwoman, with her two-year old girl; the Portuguese girls and the Irish lads, the English and the American pickers, all in strife, clannish, jealous, pugilistic, and never free from the strain of tragedy. Pat and Tim could hold their own, as they were well-trained street fighters. “Git on yer own side, Sheeny,” Tim used to scream to the venerable Israelite; “I’ll punch yer in the plexus!” and without a word, but with a cowed look of the eyes, the old man would retreat from the property he had been cunningly encroaching upon. Then Tim’s commanding voice could be heard, “Say, Geeser, hand over that copper-bottomed boiler to yer uncle, will yer, or I’ll smash yer phiz in!” But when “Wallop” Smitz brought his rowdy crowd to the dump, it was like an invasion of the “Huns.” We were driven from the dump in dismay, often with our clothes torn and our wagons battered. And oh, what prizes of the dump! Cracked plates, cups and saucers, tinware, bric-à-brac, footwear, clothing, nursing-bottles and nipples, bottles with the dregs of flavoring extracts, cod-liver oil, perfumes, emulsions, tonics, poisons, antiseptics, cordials, decayed fruit, and faded flowers! These were seized in triumph, taken home in glee, and no doubt used in faith. There is little philosophy in poverty, and questions of sanitation and prudence come in the stage beyond it. “Only bring me coal and wood,” commanded my aunt, in regard to my visits to the dumps, but I managed to save rubbers, rags, and metal, as a side product, and get money for them from the old Jew junk-man.