Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 5/A phase of the paper question: the rag merchant in Brittany

by Edward Henry Michelsen

A PHASE OF THE PAPER QUESTION.
THE RAG MERCHANT IN BRITTANY.

There live amongst the mountains of Bretagne a peculiar sort of tradespeople, called by the natives “Pillavers.” The pillaver is a nomadic rag-merchant, leading in every respect the life of a gipsy, except that he does not, like him, drag his family with him, but leaves them in some cave in the mountains to await his return from his trips through the country, where he purchases quantities of rags to re-sell them to the paper manufacturers. He goes from farm to farm, cottage to cottage, and hut to hut, where he announces his arrival by the lugubrious cry—“Pillaver! Pillaver!” His favourite haunts are the most wretched and poor huts, where he is sure to find his commodity. He is a sort of notorious hobgoblin, who knocks at the doors of the unhappy, and reminds them of their poverty. He is, therefore, hated and possibly shunned, while in rich families his call is considered an insult, and his knock is usually answered by “Be off! there are no rags here for you.”

“Very well,” rejoins the pillaver, in an ominously ironical tone, “I will come by-and-by,” and moves on to a near cottage to find what he seeks.

But even in the huts where a few rags are sold to him he is received with contempt and abhorrence, and is seldom allowed to advance as far as the fire-place. The rags are brought to him to the threshold, where the bargain is made. His honesty is so distrusted that even the poorest of the poor fear his thieving craft; he is—as the song goes—without church and religion.

We will cite, in illustration, a few stanzas of the popular song about the pillaver:—

There he goes, goes the pillaver, like the Wandering Jew. He finds in the country neither relations nor friends, and at his approach the doors are closed, for the pillaver is a man without faith.

 

On Sundays and holidays he is always on the road; he never hears mass nor service. He prays not at the grave of his parents; he confesses not to his priest, and thus it is said in the lowland, the pillaver has neither creed nor parish.

 

Go on, poor pillaver, the road is hard under your feet, but Jesus does not judge after the manner of men; and if you are honest and a good Christian, you will be rewarded for your pain and toil, and awake in glory.

 

You see the dirty rags on the back of your nag? Well, the water of the river will soon cleanse them, and the hammers of the paper-mill will soon bruise them, and paper will be made out of them more white than the finest linen.

 

Thus it will go with you, poor pillaver. When once you have laid your rag-covered body into some grave, your soul will fly away clean and white, and the angels will carry it into Paradise.