Old crafts

1. Lantaarnopsteker / Lamplighter / Allumeur de réverbères / Lámpagyújtogató
Maastricht, date unknown
• The memorable Chapter 14 of The little prince: encounter with the lamplighter

twenty-five in number, from the same Dutch Nationaal Archief. They are not of the same range: besides the completely extinct, or even exotic crafts, such as the faeces collector (it is even difficult to find a proper term for it!) and the bear-leader, we also find here the school dentist, the maid and the miner, while on the other hand several other professions are not represented among them, such as the cobbler, the watchmaker or the stockings repairer. Nevertheless, they even so give a good picture about those extinct or less frequent professions which just two generations earlier were widespread not only in the Netherlands, but also in large parts of Europe.

Again we announce a common game. We ask our multilingual readers to add to the Dutch and English craft names, taken from the original database (and the Hungarian ones added by us wherever we could) how these professions are called in their respective languages (even special or dialectal terms, if there are any), thus starting a small specialized vocabulary, which we can later expand with the photos of other professions (earlier there was already one such post, the list of rural works and songs in Mallorca). And also if in their own literature there are beautiful reminiscences of one or another profession. Such as the touching story about the old cobbler by Attila József for the Hungarians (which we will soon translate and link here).

2. Poppenkastspeler / Punch-and-Judy show / Montreur de marionettes / Bábjátékos
Dam square in Amsterdam, 1935

3. Strontschepper / Faeces-collector / Boueux (old term), vidangeur (new) / Natmand / Éjjeliedény-ürítő (?)
Faeces-collector collecting toilet-waste in buckets. Amsterdam, 13 September 1953
• Commentary: “The job, otherwise known as ʻtonnenman’ (ʻbarrelman’), still existed in the mid-sixties in certain places in Holland (Delft, for instance).”
• Annie Zaidi’s short story on the faeces collectors of Delhi (in Buràn, thanks, Effe!)
• Catherine: The old word, until the nineteenth century was “boueux” (muddy), connected, I think, to “éboueur” (garbage man), a term still used for those collecting garbage, as the concept of filth has lost its essentially fecal meaning, and only indicates what we throw in a dustbin. The boueux gathered both faeces and the mud accumulated, and spread it outside the city walls (e.g. in the north-east of Paris, beyond the current Place de la République).
• Gyuri: In Danish the faeces-collecor was called “natmand” or “nightman”, as he performed in the night his job which did not really tolerate the daylight.

13. IJsdragers / Men delivering ice / Jeges
Men delivering ice in the old days when there were no refrigerators. 1930’s
• Pál Békés on the last ice-deliverer of Budapest (in Hungarian)

25. Scharensliep / Scissors-grinder / Rémouleur / Arrotino / Köszörűs
[1931]
• Effe:The grinder in Italian is “arrotino”. I can recall, from my far childhood, his shouting from the street: Donne, è arrivato l’arrotino! (Ladies, the grinder has come!)
• Catherine / SR: There were still rémouleurs in Paris in the late 70s (and maybe until the early 90s). They kept yelling in the streets and courtyards, especially in poor districts where courtyards were still open: “vieux ciseaux! vieux couteaux!” (old scissors! old knives!) with a silence between the two sentences, a long first syllabe, a short one, and then the accent on the final “o”. Especially in the Marais district, the old Pletzl, where there were no code locks on the gates yet, and they could move from yard to yard (and where still there were many poor people and workers).