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Monday, August 28: The Night-Soil Men

• In The Night-Soil Men, in 1854 London was a huge metropolis of more than two million people.

• The lower class at that time was as large as a small city.

• Groups of scavengers that were divided into different groups of workers helped deal with the waste created by the citizens of London.

• They collected everything from stray coins, bones, rags, and excrement.

• They were the first to recycle.

• Today the homeless do not have to scavenge in order to survive except in third world countries.

• The scavengers lived and worked in the shadows, but the stench kept everyone aware that they were there.

• At the top of the scavengers were the night-soil men who collected the excrement that was put into cesspools.

• They would sell the excrement to farmers outside the city.

• They earned a good wage that was almost twice what skilled laborers...

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