Show J THE Tin TRADE IN OLD BOTTLES A New York Firm That Handles Unit JIU a Million a Day DR From New York Sun Almost half halfa a million old bottles are handled every everyday everyday everyday day by a single firm in New York city Most of ot them are aro wine and beer bottles but there are also hundreds of bottles used for or catsup and other table sauces The mineral waters furnish a largo large proportion of the full number None of ot these bottles is washed or cleaned by the firm that collects them hem but they must not be old and gummy or orthey orthey orthey they will not be accepted They are shipped all aU ov over i- i this country and a good many of them are sent back to Europe Those reshipped across the water are mostly ginger ale bottles sent to Ireland some beer or ale bottles bottles bottles bot bot- sent to England and wine and liquor bottles s sent nt to France Of course these are re The dealers here bere say that the French bottles are the best made The English English- come next the American next and then the Ger Ger- man Comparatively few bottles are lost in transit either on board cars or in the collecting wagons When a wagon Is loaded with cases of empties the driver puts a straw wrapper on each of the corner bottles at the end of the wagon It doesn't seem as If this would be a very great protection but it does serve as a slight buffer In case of passing rubs and knocks The bottle shops of New NewYork NewYork NewYork York are not eS especially picturesque but in in New Orleans there is one which has become noted It is visited by most tourists many of whom carry away some squat shaped queer-shaped liquor bottle by way of The Bottle Bottle Bottle Bot Bot- tle Man of Conti Street owes his fame to Mrs M. M E. E M. M Davis one of New New- Orleans' Orleans literary women Mrs Davis lives only a block or two from tho the haunt of the bottle man mans over in the theold theold theold old French part of the city When Eugene Field visited there several years ago Mrs Davis took him around to Conti street to see the bottle bottJe man and his treasures Field and the bottleman bottle bottleman bottleman man were mutually delighted over the meeting The shop Is a great high sort of shed reaching from the street back feet into the block It is piled plied with stack on stack of crates full tun of ot empty wine bottles while from the ceiling hang rows of dusty demijohns demijohns demijohns demi demi- johns and Jugs There are shelves occupied by a medley of quaint cordial cordial cordial cor cor- dial bottles bright green and blue potbellied potbellied pot pot- bellied sided flat eccentric freakish things Field Field delighted in these shelves and used to poke around in inI inthe inthe I the dust and the shadows hunting up new shapes shapes- which he carried off to I add to the miscellaneous lot of stuff he shipped home from there But there was one bottle with which he was es especially especially especially es- es delighted It was a brilliant r blue in color with a very long thin neck and a fat body pressed Into inte a sided four-sided shape In the middle of ot one side was a seal stamped In the glass Every visitor in Conti street nowadays hears about Fields Field's visits and is permitted to gaze upon upon upon-or or purchase purl pur pur- l chase one chase one of the Field bottles After his return to Chicago Mrs Davis wrote the poem Oem The Bottle Man of Conti Street Street and sent it t to him Field replied replied re re- re plied in his usual happy vein and these autograph verses are among Mrs Davis' Davis treasures today I |