Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 March 1902 — What Becomes of Old Shoes. [ARTICLE]

What Becomes of Old Shoes.

Few persons know, or care particularly, what becomes of the thousands of pairs of old shoes that improvident New Yorkers cast aside every day. When they buy new footwear, nine out of ten persons leave their old shoes at the store where they make their purchase, thinking, no doubt, that the “cast offs” are of no further use and fit only for the city’s refuse heap. Not so, however, for old shoes are a source of income and benefit to thousands of persons. In the first place, the clerks in the large stores collect all-the old shoes turned over to them by customers, and every few days sell them for a small sum a pair to regular dealers in them. While the amount received by the clerk for a single pair is inconsiderable, his weekly income is Substantially increased by his aggregate receipts from this source, 82, 83 and even 85 a week being nothing unusual soy clerks in the largest shoe stores to obtain. The dealer makes a snug sum by having the old shoes repaired and then selling them to the poor of the city and the negroes of the South. To the latter class by far the greater part of the supply goes.