 Section 66 of London Labour and the London Poor, volume 2 by Henry Mayhew. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Gillian Henry. Of the chimney sweepers of the present day. The chimney sweepers of the present day are distinguished from those of old by the use of machines instead of climbing boys for the purpose of removing the suit from the flues of houses. The chimney sweeping machines were first used in this country in the year 1803. They were the invention of Mr Smart, a carpenter, residing at the foot of Westminster Bridge, Surrey. On the earlier trials of the machine, which was similar to that used at present, and which I shall shortly describe, it was pronounced successful in 99 cases out of 100, according to some accounts, but failing where sharp angles occurred in the flue, which arrested its progress. Means have been suggested, said Mr Took, formerly mentioned, in his evidence before a committee of the House of Commons. For obviating that difficulty by fixed apparatus at the top of the flue, with a jack chain and pulley, by which a brush could be worked up and down, or it could be done as his customary abroad, as I have repeatedly seen it at Petersburg, and heard of its being done universally on the continent, by letting down a bullet with a brush attached to it from the top, but to obviate the inconvenience, which is considerable, from persons going up on the roof of a house. Mr John White, Jr., an eminent surveyor, has suggested the expediency of putting iron shutters or registers to each flue in the roof or cock loft of each house, by opening which, and working the machine upwards and downwards, or letting down the bullet, which is the most compendious manner, the chimney will be most effectually cleansed, and by its aperture at bottom being kept well closed, it would be done with the least possible dirt and inconvenience to the family. The Society for the Supercedence of the Labour of Climbing Boys promoted the adoption of the machines by all the means in their power, presenting the new instrument gratuitously to several master sweepers who were too poor to purchase it. Experiments were made and duly published as to the effectual manner in which the chimneys at Guildhall, the Mansion House, the then new Custom House, Dulwich College, and in other public edifices had been cleansed by the machine. But these statements seem to have produced little effect. People thought perhaps that the mechanical means which might very well cleanse the chimneys of large public buildings, and it was said that the chimneys of the Custom House were built with a view to the use of the machine, might not be so serviceable for the same purposes in small private dwellings. Experiments continued to be made, often in the presence of architects, of the more respectable sweepers, and of ladies and gentlemen who took a philanthropic interest in the question between the years 1803 and 1817, but with little influence upon the general public for in 1817 Mr. Smart supposed that there were but 50 or 60 machines in general use in the metropolis, and those it appeared from the evidence of several master sweepers were used chiefly in gentlemen's houses, many of those gentlemen having to be authoritative with their servants who, if not controlled, always preferred the services of the climbing boys. Most servants had perquisites from the master sweepers, in the largest and most profitable ways of business, and they seemed to fear the loss of those perquisites if any change took place. The opposition in Parliament and in the great indifference of the people to the efforts of the friends of the climbing boy to supersede his painful labours by the use of machinery was formidable enough, but that of the servants appears to have been more formidable still. Mr. Smart showed this in his explanations to the committee. The whole result of his experience was that servants set their faces against the introduction of the machine, grumbling if there were not even the appearance of dirt on the furniture after its use. The first winter I went out with this machine, said Mr. Smart. I went to Mr. Birks in Tokenhouse Yard, who was a friend of mine, with a man to sweep the chimneys, and after waiting above an hour in a cold morning, the housekeeper came down quite in a rage that we should presume to ring the bell or knock at the door, and when we got admittance, she swore she wished the machine and the inventor at the devil. She did not know me. We swept all the chimneys, and when we had done, I asked her what objection she had to it now. She said, a very serious one, that if there was a thing by which a servant could get any emolument, some damned invention was sure to take it away from them, for that she received perquisites. This avowal of Mr. Birks' housekeeper, as brusque as it was honest, is typical of the feelings of the whole class of servants. The opposition in Parliament, as I have intimated, continued, one noble lord informed the House of Peers that he had been indisposed of late and had sought the aid of Calamel, the curative influence of which had pervaded every portion of his frame, and that it as far surpassed the less-searching powers of other medicines as the brush of the climbing boy in cleansing every nook and corner of the chimney surpassed all the power of the machinery, which left the suit unpurged from those nooks and corners. The House of Commons, however, had expressed its conviction that as long as master chimney sweepers were permitted to employ climbing boys, the natural result of that permission would be the continuance of those miseries which the legislature had sought, but which it had failed, and they therefore recommended that the use of climbing boys should be prohibited altogether, and that the age at which the apprenticeship should commence should be extended from 8 to 14, putting this trade upon the same footing as others which took apprentices at that age. This resolution became law in 1829. The employment of climbing boys in any manner in the interior of chimneys was prohibited by the penalties of fine and imprisonment, and it was enacted that the new measure should be carried into effect in three years, so giving the master sweepers that period of time to complete their arrangements. During the course of the experiments and inquiry, the sweepers as a body seemed to have thrown no obstacles, or very few and slight obstacles, in the way of the committee to promote the superseding of the labour of climbing boys. While the most respectable of the class, or the majority of the respectable, aided the efforts of the committee. This manifestation of public feeling probably modified the opposition of the sweepers and unquestionably influenced the votes of members of parliament. The change in the operations of the chimney sweeping business took place in 1832 as quietly and unnoticedly, as if it were no change at all. The machine now in use differs little from that invented by Mr. Smart, the first introduced, but lighter materials are now used in its manufacture. It has not been found necessary, however, to complicate its use with the jack chain and pulley, and bullet with a brush attached, and the iron shutters or registers in the roof or cock loft, of which Mr. Took spoke. The machine is formed of a series of hollow rods, made of a supple cane, bending and not breaking in any sinuosity of the flues. This cane is made of the same material as gentlemen's walking sticks. The first machines were made of wood and were liable to be broken, and to enable the sweeps on such occasion to recover the broken part, a strong line ran from bottom to top through the centre of the sticks, which were bored for the purpose, and strung on this cord. The cane machine, however, speedily and effectually superseded these imperfect instruments, and there are now none of them to be met with. To the top tube of the machine is attached the brush, called technically the head, of elastic whalebone spikes, which give and bend in accordance with the up or down motion communicated by the man working the machine, so sweeping what was described to me as both ways, up and down. Some of these rods, which fit into one another by means of brass screws, are four feet six inches long, and diminish in diameter to suit their adjustment. Some rods are about three feet six inches long, and four feet is the full average length. While the average price at the machine makers is two shilling sixpence a rod, if bought separately. The head costs ten shillings on an average if bought separately. It is seldom that a machine is required to number beyond seventeen rods, extending sixty-eight feet, and the better class of sweepers are generally provided with seventeen rods. The cost of the entire machine for every kind of chimney work, when purchased new as a whole, is one of good quality from thirty shillings to five pounds, according to the number of rods, duplicate rods and so on. Mr Smith stated in 1817 that the average price of one of his machines was then two pounds three shillings. The sweepers who labored chiefly in the poorer localities, and several told me how indifferent many people in those parts were as to their chimneys being swept at all, rarely use a machine to extend beyond forty feet, or one composed of ten or eleven rods. But some of the inferior class of sweepers buy off those in a superior way of trade, worn machines, at from a third to a half of their prime cost. These machines they trim up themselves, one portion of the work, however, they cannot repair or renew the broken or worn out brass screws of the rods, which they call the ferrules. These, when new, are one shilling each. There were, when the machine work was novel, I was informed, street artisans who went about repairing these screws or ferrules, but their work did not please the chimney sweepers, and this street trade did not last above a year or two. The rods of the machine, when carefully attended to, last a long time. One man told me that he was still working some rods which he had worked since 1842, nine years, with occasional renewal of the ferrules. The head is either injured or worn down in about two years, if not well made at first, in a year. The diameter of this head or brush is on the average eighteen inches. One of my informants had himself swept a chimney of eighty feet, and one of his fellow workers had said that he once swept a chimney of one hundred and twenty feet high, in both cases by means of the machine. My informant, however, thought such a feet as the one hundred and twenty feet sweep was hardly possible, as only one man's strength can be applied to the machine, and he was of opinion that no man's muscular powers would be sufficient to work a machine at a height of one hundred and twenty feet. The labour is sometimes very severe. Enough, one strongly built man told me, to make your arms, head and heart ache. The old-fashioned chimneys are generally twelve by fourteen inches in their dimensions in the interior, and for the thorough sweeping of such chimneys, the opinion of all the sweepers I saw according on the subject, ahead, it is rarely called brush in the trade, of eighteen inches diameter is insufficient, yet they are seldom used larger. One intelligent master sweeper, speaking from his own knowledge, told me that in the neighbourhood where he worked, numbers of houses had been built since the introduction of the machines, and the chimneys were only nine inches square, as regards the interior. The smaller flows are sometimes but seven. These nine inch chimneys, he told me, were frequent in scamped houses. The houses got up at the lowest possible rate by speculating builders. This was done because the brickwork of the chimneys costs more than the other portions of the masonry, and so the smaller the dimensions of the chimneys, the less the cost of the edifice. The machines are sometimes as much crippled in this circumscribed space as they are found of insufficient dimensions in the old-fashioned chimneys, and so the scamped chimney, unless by a master having many heads, is not so cleanly swept as it might be. Chimneys not built in this manner are now usually nine inches by fourteen. In cleansing a chimney with the machine, the sweep stands by, or rather in, the fireplace, having first attached a sort of curtain to the mantle to confine the suit to one spot, the operator standing inside this curtain. He first introduces the head, attached to its proper rod, into the chimney, driving it forward, then screws on the next rod, and so on, until the head has been driven to the top of the chimney. The suit which has fallen upon the hearth within the curtain is collected into a sack, or sacks, and is carried away on the men's backs, and occasionally in carts. The whale-bone spikes of the head are made to extend in every direction, so that when it is moved, no part of the chimney, if the surface be even, escapes contact with these spikes, if the work be carefully done, as indeed it generally is. For the cleaner the chimney is swept, of course the greater amount of suit adds to the profit of the sweeper. One man told me that he thought he had seen in some old big chimneys a long time unswept, more suit brought down by the machine than under similar circumstances as to the time the chimney had remained un cleansed, would have been done by the climbing boy. All the master sweepers I saw concurred in the opinion that the machine was not, in all respects, so effective a sweeper as the climbing boy, as it does not reach the recesses, nooks, crannies or holes in the chimney, where the suit remains little disturbed by the present process. This want is felt the most in the cleansing of the old-fashioned chimneys, especially in the country. Mr Cook, in 1817, stated to the committee that the cleansing of a chimney by a boy or by a machine occupied the same space of time, but I find the general opinion of the sweepers now to be that it is only the small and straight chimneys which can be swept with as great celerity by a machine as by a climber. In all others the lad was quicker by about five minutes in thirty, or in that proportion. I heard sweepers represent that the passing of the act of parliament not only deprived them in many instances of the unexpired term of a boy's apprenticeship in his services as a climber, but through open the business to anyone. The business, however, it seems, was always open to anyone. There was no art nor mystery in it, as regarded the functions of the master. Anyone could send a boy up a chimney and collect and carry away the suit he brought down quite as readily and far more easily than he can work a machine. Nevertheless, men under the old system could hardly, and some say they were forbidden to, embark in this trade unless they had been apprenticed to it, for they were at a loss how to possess themselves of climbing boys and how to make a connection. When the machines were introduced, however, a good many persons who were able to raise the price of one started in the line on their own account. These men have been called by the old hands leeks or greenons to distinguish them from the regularly trained men who pride themselves not a little on the fact of their having served seven or eight years, duly and truly as they never fail to express it. This increase of fresh hands tended to lower the earnings of the class, and some masters who were described to me similarly very comfortable, and some comparatively speaking rich, were considerably reduced by it. The number of leeks in 1832 I heard stated with the exaggeration to which I have been accustomed when uninformed men ignorant of the relative value of numbers have expressed their opinions as one thousand. The several classes in the chimney sweeping trade may be arranged as follows. The master chimney sweepers called sometimes governors by the journeymen are divisible into three kinds. The large or high masters who employ from two to ten men and two boys and keep sometimes two horses and a cart, not particularly for the conveyance of the suit but to go into the country to a gentleman's house to fulfil orders. The small or low masters who employ on an average two men and sometimes but one man and a boy without either horse or cart. The single-handed master men who employ neither men nor boys but do all the work themselves. Of these three classes of masters there are two subdivisions. The leeks or greenens that is to say those who have not regularly served their time to the trade. The nullers or queriers that is to say those who solicit custom in an irregular manner by knocking at the doors of houses and such like. Of the competition of capitalists in this trade there are, I am told, no instances. We have our own stations one master sweeper said and if I contract to sweep a gentleman's house here in Pancras for twenty-five shillings a year or ten shillings or anything my nearest neighbour as has men and machines fit is in Mariban and it wouldn't pay to send his men a mile and a half or onto two mile and work at what I can let alone less. No sir, I've known business nine twenty years and there's nothing in the way of that underworking. The poor queriers as keeps their cells with a machine and nothing to give them a lift beyond it they'd undertake work at any figure but nobody employs or can trust to them but on chance. The contracts I am told for a year's chimney sweeping in any mansion are on the same terms with one master as with another. As regards the journeyman chimney sweepers there are also three kinds the foreman or first journeyman sweeper who accompanies the men to their work super intends their labourers and receives the money when paid immediately after sweeping the journeyman sweeper whose duty it is to work the machine and where no under journeyman or boy is kept to carry the machine and take home the suit the under journeyman or boy who has to carry the machine take home the suit and work the machine up the lower class flues. There are besides these some twenty climbing men who ascend such flues as the machines cannot cleanse effectively and it must I regret to say be added some twenty to thirty climbing boys mostly under eleven years of age who are still used for the same purpose on the sly many of the masters indeed lament the change to machine sweeping saying that their children who are now useless would in the good old times have been worth a pound a week to them it is in the suburbs that these climbing children are mostly employed the hours of labour are from the earliest morning till about midday and sometimes later there are no houses of call trade societies or regulations among these operatives but there are low public houses to which they resort and where they can always be heard of when a chimney sweeper is out of work he merely inquires of others in the same line of business who if they know of anyone that wants a journeyman direct their brother sweeper to call and see the master but though the chimney sweepers have no trade societies some of the better class belong to sick and others to burial funds the lower class of sweepers however seem to have no resource in sickness or in their utmost need but the parish there are sweepers I am told in every work house in London there are three modes of payment common among the sweepers one in money two partly in money and partly in kind and three by perquisites the great majority of the masters pay the men they employ from two shillings to three shillings and a few four shillings and six shillings per week together with their board and lodging it may seem that three shillings per week is a small sum but it was remarked to me that there are few working men who after supporting themselves are able to save that sum weekly while the sweepers have many perquisites of one sort or other which sometimes bring them in two shillings three shillings four shillings and occasionally five shillings or six shillings a week additional a sufficient sum to pay for clothes and washing the journeymen when lodged in the house of the master are single men and if constantly employed might perhaps do well but they are often unemployed especially in the summer when there are not so many fires kept burning as soon as one of them gets married or what among them is synonymous takes up with a woman which they commonly do when they are able to purchase some sort of a machine they set up for themselves and thus a great number of the men get to be masters on their own account without being able to employ any extra hands these are generally reckoned among the nullers they do but little business at first for the masters long established in a neighbourhood who are known to the people and have some standing all was preferred to those who are strangers or mere beginners it was very common but perhaps more common in country towns than in London for the journeymen as well as apprentices in this and many other trades to live at the masters table but the board and lodging supplied in lieu of money wages to the journeymen sweepers seems to be one of the few existing instances of such a practice in London among slot working tailors some unfortunate workmen are boarded and lodged by their employers but these employers are merely middlemen who gain their living by serving such masters as do not like to drive their negroes themselves but among the sweepers there are no middlemen it is not all the journeymen sweepers however who are remunerated after this manner for many receive 12 shillings and some 14 shillings and not a few 18 shillings weekly besides perquisites but reside at their own homes apprenticeship is now not at all common among the sweepers as no training to the business is needed Lord Shaftesbury however in July last gave notice of his intention to bring in a bill to prevent persons who had not been duly apprenticed to the business establishing themselves as sweepers the perquisites of the journeymen sweepers are for measuring, arranging and putting the suit sold into the purchasers sacks or carts for this is considered extra work the payment of this perquisite seems to be on no fixed scale some having one shilling for 50 and some for 100 bushels when a chimney is on fire and a journeymen sweeper is employed to extinguish it he receives from one shilling sixpence to five shillings according to the extent of time consumed and the risk of being injured chance sweeping or the sweeping of a chimney not belonging to a customer when a journeyman has completed his regular round ensures him thruppance in some employments but in fewer than was once the case the bear money given by any customer to a journeyman is also his perquisite where a foreman is kept that breeze or cinders collected from the great belong to him and the ashes belong to the journeyman but where there is no foreman the breeze and ashes belong to the journeyman solely these they sell to the poor at the rate of sixpence a bushel I am told by experienced men that all these matters considered it may be stated that one half of the journeyman in London have perquisites of one shilling sixpence the other half of two shilling sixpence a week the nominal wages to the journeyman then are from twelve shillings to eighteen shillings weekly without board and lodging or from two shillings to six shillings in money with board and lodging represented as equal to seven shillings the actual wages are two shilling sixpence a week more in the form of perquisites and perhaps fourpence daily in beer or gin the wages to the boys are mostly one shilling a week but many masters pay one shilling sixpence to two shillings with board and lodging these boys have no perquisites except such bits of broken vitals as are given to them at houses where they go to sweep the wages of the foreman are generally eighteen shillings per week but some receive fourteen shillings and some twenty shillings without board and lodging in one case where the foreman is kept by the master only two shilling sixpence in money is given to him weekly the perquisites of these men average from four shillings to five shillings a week the work in the chimney sweeping trade is more regular than might at first be supposed the sweepers whose circumstances enable them to employ journeymen send them on regular rounds and do not engage chance hands if business is brisk the men and the master when a working man himself work later than ordinary and sometimes another hand is put on and paid the customary amount by the week until the briskness ceases but this is a rare occurrence there are however strong lads or journeymen out of work who are occasionally employed in jobbing helping to carry the suit and such like the labour of the journeymen as regards the payment by their masters is continuous but the men are often discharged for drunkenness or endeavouring to form a connection of their own among their employer's customers and new hands are then put on chimneys won't wait do you know sir was said to me and if I quit a hand this week there's another in his place next if I discharge a hand for three months in a slack time I have two on when it's a busy time perhaps the average employment of the whole body of operatives may be taken at nine months work in the year when out of employment the chief resource of these men is in night work some turn street sellers and bricklayers labourers I am told that a considerable sum of money was left for the purpose of supplying every climbing boy who called on the first of May at a certain place with a shilling and some refreshment but I have not been able to ascertain by whom it was left or where it was distributed none of the sweepers with whom I conversed knew anything about it I also heard that since the passing of the act the money has been invested in some securities or other and is now accumulating but to what purpose it is intended to be applied I have no means of learning that is now endeavour to estimate the gross yearly income of the operative sweepers there are then 399 men employed as journeymen and off them 147 receive a money wage weekly from their masters and reside with their parents or at their own places the remaining 252 are boarded and lodged this board and lodging are generally computed as under the old system to represent 8 shillings being one shilling a day for board and one shilling a week for lodging but on the average the board does not cost the masters 7 shillings a week but as I shall afterwards show barely 6 shillings the men and boys may be said to be all fully employed for 9 months in the year some of course are at work all the year through but others only get 6 months employment in the 12 months so that taking 9 months as the average we have the following table of wages paid to the operative sweepers of London journeymen without board and lodging employed by 3 masters at 18 shillings per week money wages for 9 months 1,053 pounds 14 employed by 5 masters at 16 shillings per week 436 pounds 16 shillings 6 employed by 3 masters at 15 shillings per week 175 pounds 10 shillings 27 employed by 8 masters at 14 shillings per week 737 pounds 2 shillings 63 employed by 23 masters at 12 shillings per week 1,474 pounds 4 shillings 7 employed by 3 masters at 10 shillings per week 136 pounds 10 shillings in total 147 journeymen employed by 45 masters total money wages 4,013 pounds 2 shillings with board and lodging 3 journeymen employed by 1 master at 8 shillings per week money wages for 9 months 46 pounds 16 shillings value of board and lodging for 9 months estimated at 7 shillings a week 40 pounds 19 shillings 17 employed by 5 masters at 6 shillings per week money wage 198 pounds 18 shillings value of board and lodging 232 pounds 1 shillings 1 employed by 1 master at 5 shillings per week money wages 9 pounds 15 shillings value of board and lodging 13 pounds 13 shillings 41 employed by 14 masters at 4 shillings per week money wages 18 pounds 16 shillings value of board and lodging 559 pounds 13 shillings 3 employed by 1 master at 3 shillings 6 pounds per week money wages 20 pounds 9 shillings 6 pounds value of board and lodging 40 pounds 19 shillings 80 employed by 39 masters at 3 shillings per week money wages 468 pounds value of board and lodging 1092 pounds 53 employed by 26 masters at 2 shillings 6 pounds per week money wages 258 pounds 7 shillings 6 pounds value of board and lodging 723 pounds 9 shillings 44 employed by 31 masters at 2 shillings per week money wages 171 shillings value of board and lodging 600 pounds 9 shillings 8 8 employed by 4 masters at 1 shillings 6 pounds per week money wages 234 pounds value of board and lodging 109 pounds 4 shillings 2 employed by 1 master at 1 shillings per week money wages 3 pounds 18 shillings 27 pounds 6 shillings in total 252 journeymen employed by 123 masters total money wages for 9 months 1731 pounds 12 shillings total value of board and lodging for 9 months 3439 pounds 13 shillings 8 4 men without board and lodging 2 4 men employed by 1 master at 20 shillings per week money wages 78 pounds 6 4 men employed by 4 masters at 18 shillings per week 210 pounds 12 shillings 1 4 men employed by 1 master at 16 shillings per week 31 pounds 4 shillings 2 4 men employed by 2 masters at 14 shillings per week 54 pounds 12 shillings in total 11 4 men employed by 8 masters total money wages 374 pounds 8 shillings 4 men with board and lodging 1 4 men employed by 1 master at 2 shillings 6 shillings per week money wages 4 pounds 17 shillings 6 shillings value of board and lodging for 9 months 13 pounds 13 shillings boys without board and lodging 2 boys employed by 1 master at 10 shillings per week money wages 39 pounds boys with board and lodging 1 boy employed by 1 master at 3 shillings per week money wages 5 pounds 17 shillings board and lodging estimated at 6 shillings a week 11 pounds 14 shillings 6 shillings per week money wages 4 pounds 17 shillings 6 shillings board and lodging 11 pounds 14 shillings 9 boys employed by 8 masters at 2 shillings per week money wages 35 pounds 2 shillings board and lodging 105 pounds 6 shillings 14 boys employed by 14 masters at 1 shillings 6 shillings per week money wages 40 pounds 19 shillings board and lodging 163 pounds 16 shillings 30 boys employed by 28 masters at 1 shillings per week money wages 58 pounds 10 shillings board and lodging 351 pounds 1 boy employed by 1 master at 9 pounds per week money wages 1 pound 9 shillings thruppence board and lodging 11 pounds 14 shillings 4 boys employed by 2 masters at 0 per week money wages 0 board and lodging 46 pounds 16 shillings in total 62 boys employed by 54 masters total money wages for 9 months 146 pounds 14 shillings 9 pounds total value of board and lodging for 9 months 702 pounds total earnings 6309 pounds 14 shillings thruppence total for board lodging and so on 4155 pounds 6 shillings 8 pence grand total 10465 pounds 11 pence thus we find that the constant or average casual wages of the several classes of operative chimney sweepers may be taken as follows journeymen without board and lodging and with perquisites averaging 2 shillings a week 12 shillings 6 pence journeymen with board and lodging and 2 shillings a week perquisites 9 shillings 10 pence 4 men without board and lodging at 2 shillings 6 pence a week perquisites 15 shillings 7 pence boys with board and lodging 5 shillings thruppence the general wages of the trade including foremen journeymen and boys and calculating the perquisites to average 2 shillings weekly will be 10 shillings 6 pence a week the same as the cotton factory operatives but if 10500 pounds be the income of the operatives what do the employers receive who have to pay this sum the charge for sweeping one of all off the chimneys in the public and official edifices and in the great houses in the aristocratic streets and squares is 2 shilling 6 pence and 3 shilling 6 pence the chimneys of moderate sized houses are swept at 1 shilling to 1 shilling 6 pence each and those of the poorer classes are charged generally 6 pence some however are swept at thruppence and forepence and when soot realised a higher price some of the present master sweepers have sold it at 1 shilling a bushel the chimneys of poor persons were swept by the poorer class of sweeps merely for the perquisite of the soot this is sometimes done even now but to a very small extent by a sweeper on his own hook and in want of a job but generally with an injunction to the person whose chimney has been cleansed on such easy terms not to mention it couldn't be made a practice on estimating the number of houses belonging to the wealthy classes of society to be 54,000 and these to be swept 8 times a year and the charge for sweeping to be 2 shilling 6 pence each time and the number of houses belonging to the middle classes to be 90,000 and each to be swept 4 times a year at 1 shilling 6 pence each time and the dwellings of the poor in classes to be swept once a year at 6 pence each time and the number of such dwellings to be 165,000 we find that the total sum paid to the master chimney sweepers of London is in roundt numbers 85,000 pounds the sum obtained for 800,000 bushels of soot collected by the master sweepers from the houses of London at 5 pence per bushel 1,500 pounds thus the total annual income of the master sweepers of London is 100,000 pounds out of this 100,000 pounds per annum the expenses of the master sweepers would appear to be as follows yearly expenditure of the master sweepers sum paid in wages to 473 journeymen 10,500 pounds rent and so on of 350 houses or lodgings at 12 pounds yearly each 4,200 pounds wear and tear of 1,000 machines 1 pound each yearly 1,000 pounds ditto 2,000 sacks at 1 shilling each yearly 100 pounds keep of 25 horses 7 shillings weekly each 455 pounds wear and tear of 25 carts and harnesses 1 pound each 25 pounds interest on capital at 10% 450 pounds total yearly expenditure of master sweepers employing journeymen 16,736 pounds the rent here given may seem low at 12 pounds a year but many of the chimney sweepers live in parlours with cellars low in old out-of-the-way places at a low rental in Stepney, Shadwell, Wapping Bethnal Green, Hoxton Locksfields, Wallworth, Nearington Islington, Summerstown, Paddington and so on the better sort of master sweepers at the west end often live in amuse the gains then of the master sweepers are as under annual income for cleansing chimneys and soot 100,000 pounds expenditure for wages rent, wear and tear keep of horses and so on say 20,000 pounds annual profit of master chimney sweepers of London 80,000 pounds this amount of profit divided among 350 masters gives about 230 pounds per annum to each individual it is only by a few however that such a sum is realised as in the 100,000 pounds paid by the London public to the sweepers trade is included the sum received by the men who work single handed on their own hook as they say employing no journeyman of these men's earnings the accounts I heard from themselves and the other master sweepers were all accordant that they barely made journeyman's wages they have the very worst paid portion of the trade neither for their sweeping nor their soot the price is obtained by the better masters indeed they very frequently sell their soot to their more prosperous brethren their general statement is that they make 18 pence a day and all told their receipts then and they have no perquisites as have the journeyman are in a slack time about one shelling a day and some days they do not get a job but in the winter they are busier as it is then that sweepers are employed by the poor and at that period the master men may make from 15 shillings to 20 shillings a week each so that I am assured the average of their weekly takings may be estimated at 12 shilling 6 pence now deducting the expenditure from the receipts of 100,000 pounds for sweeping and soot the balance as we have seen is 80,000 pounds an amount of profit which if equally divided among the 3 classes of the trade will give the following sums profits of 150 single handed master men 32 pounds 10 shillings yearly each 4,940 pounds yearly in total profits of 92 small masters 200 pounds yearly each 18,400 pounds yearly in total profits of 106 large masters 500 pounds yearly each 53,000 pounds yearly in total total profits 76,340 pounds nor is this estimate of the master's profits I am assured extravagant one of the smaller sweepers but a prosperous man in his way he knew a master sweeper who was as rich as creaser had bought houses and could not write his own name we have now but to estimate the amount of capital invested in the chimney sweepers trade and then to proceed to the characteristics of the men 1,200 machines 2 pounds 10 shillings each present average value 3,000 pounds 3,000 sacks 2 shillings 6 pence each 385 pounds 25 horses 20 pounds each 500 pounds 25 sets of harness 2 pounds each 50 pounds 25 carts 12 pounds each 300 pounds total 4,235 pounds it may be thought that the sweepers will require the services of more than 25 horses but I am assured that such is not the case as regards the suit business for the suit is carted away from the sweepers premises by the farmer or other purchaser it would appear then that the facts of the chimney sweepers trade are briefly as under the gross quantity of suit collected yearly throughout London is 800,000 bushels the value of this sold as manure at 5 pence per bushel is 16,500 pounds there are 800 to 900 people employed in the trade 200 of whom are masters employing journeymen 150 single handed master men and 470 journeymen and under journeymen the annual income of the entire number of journeymen is 10,500 pounds without perquisites or 13,000 pounds with which gives an average weekly wage to the operatives of 10 shillings 6 pence the annual income of the masters and leaks is for sweeping and suit 100,000 pounds the annual expenditure of the masters for rent keep of horses, wear and tear and wages is 20,000 pounds the gross annual profit of the 350 masters is 80,000 pounds which is at the rate of about 35 pounds per annum to each of the single handed men 200 pounds to each of the smaller masters employing journeymen and 500 pounds to each of the larger masters the capital of the trade is about 5,000 pounds the price charged by the high master sweepers for cleansing the flows of a house rented at 150 pounds a year and upwards is from 1 shilling to 3 shilling 6 pence the higher price being paid for sweeping those chimneys which have a hot plate affixed the master on the other hand will charge from 1 shilling to 3 shillings for the same kind of work while a single handed man seldom gets above a 2 shilling job and that not very often the charge for sweeping the flows of a house rented at from 50 pounds to 150 pounds a year is from 9 pence to 2 shilling 6 pence by a large master and from 8 pence to 2 shillings by a small master while a single handed man will charge from 6 pence to 1 shilling 6 pence the price charged per flow for a house rented at from 20 pounds a year up to 50 pounds a year will average 6 pence a flow charged by large masters 4 pence by small masters and from tuppence to thruppence by the single handed sweepers in some cases indeed the poorest class will sweep a flow for the suit only but the prices charged for sweeping chimneys differ in different parts of the metropolis I subjoin a list of the maximum and minimum charge for the several districts Kensington and Hammersmith 4 pence to 3 shillings Westminster Thruppence to 2 shillings Chelsea 4 pence to 2 shillings 6 pence St George's Hanover Square 6 pence to 3 shillings 6 pence St Martins and St Anne's 4 pence to 2 shillings 6 pence St James's Westminster Thruppence to 2 shillings 6 pence Marlebone 4 pence to 2 shillings 6 pence Paddington Thruppence to 2 shillings Hampstead Thruppence to 1 shillings 6 pence St Pancras 4 pence to 3 shillings Islington Thruppence to 1 shillings 6 pence Hackney and Hummerston Thruppence to 2 shillings contrary Thruppence to 3 shillings Strand 4 pence to 2 shillings 6 pence Hoburn 4 pence to 2 shillings 6 pence Clarkinwell Thruppence to 1 shillings 6 pence St Luke's Thruppence to 1 shillings 6 pence East London Thruppence to 1 shillings 6 pence West London one shilling. Beth mill green, thruppans to one shilling. Whitechapel, fourpence to one shilling sixpence. St George's in the east and Limehouse, thruppans to one shilling. Stepney, thruppans to one shilling sixpence. Poplar, fourpence to two shillings. St George's St Olives and St Saviours, Southark, thruppans to one shilling sixpence. Bermondsey, thruppans to ninepence. Woolworth and Newington, fourpence to one shilling sixpence. Wandsworth, fourpence to one shilling sixpence. Lambeth, thruppans to one shilling. Camberwell, fourpence to two shillings. Clapple, Brickston and Tooting, fourpence to two shilling sixpence. Rutherith, thruppans to one shilling sixpence. Greenwich, thruppans to one shilling sixpence. Woolwich, thruppans to two shilling sixpence. Luisheng, sixpence to three shillings. Note, the single-handed and the nullers generally charge a penny less than the prices above given. There are three different types of soot. The best is produced purely from coal. The next in value is that which proceeds from the combustion of vegetable refuse along with the coal, as in cases where potato peelings, cabbage leaves and the like are burnt in the fires of the poorer classes. While the soot produced from wood fires is, I am told, scarcely worth carriage. Wood soot, however, is generally mixed with that from coal and sold as the superior kind. Not only is there a difference in value in the various kinds of soot, but there is also a vast difference in the weight. A bushel of pure coal soot will not weigh above four pounds. That produced from the combustion of coal and vegetable refuse will weigh nearly thrice as much. While that from wood fires is, I am assured, nearly ten times heavier than from coal. I have not heard that the introduction of free trade has had any influence on the value of soot or in reducing the wages of the operatives. The same wages are paid to the operatives whether soot sells at a high or low price. End of Section 66. Section 67 of London Labour and the London Poor Volume 2 by Henry Mayhew. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Gillian Henry. Of the general characteristics of the working chimney sweepers. There are many reasons why the chimney sweepers have ever been a distinct and peculiar class. They have long been looked down upon as the lowest order of workers and treated with conchimally by those who were but little better than themselves. The peculiar nature of their work giving them not only a filthy appearance but an offensive smell of itself in a manner prohibited them from associating with other working men. And the natural effect of such prescription has been to compel them to herd together apart from others and to acquire habits and peculiarities of their own, widely differing from the characteristics of the rest of the labouring classes. Sweepers however have not from this cause generally been a hereditary race, that is they have not become sweepers from father to son for many generations. Their numbers were in the days of the climbing boys in most instances increased by parish apprentices. The parishes usually adopting that mode as the cheapest and easiest of freeing themselves from a part of the burden of juvenile populism. The climbing boys but more especially the unfortunate parish apprentices were almost always cruelly used, starved, beaten and overworked by their masters and treated as outcasts by all with whom they came in contact. There can be no wonder then that driven in this manner from all other society they gladly availed themselves of the companionship of their fellow sufferers, quickly imbibed all their habits and peculiarities and perhaps ended by becoming themselves the most tyrannical masters to those who might happen to be placed under their charge. Notwithstanding the disrepute in which sweepers have ever been held there are many classes of workers beneath them in intelligence. All the tribe of finders and collectors with the exception of the dredger men who are an observant race and the sewer hunters who from the danger of their employment are compelled to exercise their intellects are far inferior to them in this respect and they are clever fellows compared to many of the dustmen and scavengers. The great mass of the agricultural labourers are known to be almost as ignorant as the beasts they drive but the sweepers from whatever cause it may arise are known in many instances to be shrewd, intelligent and active but there is much room for improvement among the operative chimney sweepers. Speaking of the men generally I am assured that there is scarcely one out of ten who can either read or write. One man in Chelsea informed me that some ladies in connection with the Reverend Mr Coleman's church made an attempt to instruct the sweepers of the neighborhood in reading and writing but the master sweepers grew jealous and became afraid lest their men should get too knowing for them. When the time came therefore for the men to prepare for the school the masters always managed to find out some job which prevented them from attending at the appointed time and the consequence was that the benevolent designs of the ladies were frustrated. The sweepers as a class in almost all their habits bear a strong resemblance to the Custormongers. The habit of going about in search of their employment has of itself implanted in many of them the wandering propensity peculiar to street people. Many of the better class Custormongers have risen into cold shed men and green grocers and become settled in life. In like manner the better class sweepers have risen to be masters and becoming settled in a locality have gradually obtained the trade of the neighborhood then as their circumstances improved they have been able to get horses and carts and become night men and there are many of them at this moment men of wealth comparatively speaking. The great body of them however retain in all their force their original characteristics the masters themselves although shrewd and sensible men often betray their want of education and are in no way particular as to their expressions their language being made up in a great measure of the terms peculiar to the Custormongers especially the denominations of the various sorts of money. I met with some sweepers however whose language was that in ordinary use and their manners not vulgar. I met specify one who although a workhouse orphan and apprentice a harshly treated climbing boy is now prospering as a sweeper and nightman is a regular attendant at all meetings to promote the good of the poor and a zealous ragged school teacher and tea totaler. When such men are met with perhaps the class cannot be looked upon as utterly cast away although the need of reformation in the habits of the working sweepers is extreme and especially in respect of drinking gambling and dirt. The journeymen who have often a good deal of leisure and the single-handed men are in the great majority of cases at least addicted to drinking beer being their favorite beverage either because it is the cheapest or that they fancy it the most suitable for washing away the sooty particles which find their way to their throats these men gamble also but with this proviso they seldom play for money but when they meet in their usual houses of resort two famous ones are in back sea lane and s street whitechapel they spend their time and what money they may have in tossing for beer till they are either drunk or penniless such men present the appearance of having just come out of a chimney there seems never to have been any attempt made by them to wash the suit off their faces i'm informed that there is scarcely one of them who has a second shirt or any change of clothes and that they wear their garments night and day till they literally rot and drop in fragments from their backs those who are not employed as journeymen by the masters are frequently whole days without food especially in summer when the work is slack and it usually happens that those who are what is called knocking about on their own account seldom or never have a farthing in their pockets in the morning and may perhaps have to travel till evening before they get a thrupony or sixpony chimney to sweep when night comes and they meet their companions the tossing and drinking again commences they again get drunk roll home to wherever it may be and go through the same routine on the morrow and this is the usual tenor of their lives whether earning five shillings or twenty shillings a week the chimney sweepers generally are fond of drink indeed they're calling like that of dustman is one of those which naturally lead to it the men declare they are ordered to drink gin and smoke as much as they can in order to rid the stomach of the suit they may have swallowed during their work washing among chimney sweepers seems to be much more frequent than it was in the evidence before parliament it was stated that some of the climbing boys were washed once in six months some once a week some once in two or three months i do not find it anywhere stated that any of these children were never washed at all but from the tenor of the evidence it may be reasonably concluded that such was the case a master sweeper who was in the habit of bathing at the marley bone baths once and sometimes twice a week assured me that although many now eat and drink and sleep sooty washing is more common among his class than when he himself was a climbing boy he used then to be stripped and compelled to step into a tub and into water sometimes too hot and sometimes too cold while his mistress to use his own word scoured him judging from what he had seen and heard my informant was satisfied that from 30 to 40 years ago climbing boys with a very few exceptions were but seldom washed and then it was looked upon by them as a most disagreeable operation often indeed as a species of punishment some of the climbing boys used to be taken by their masters to bathe in the serpentine many years ago but one boy was unfortunately drowned so that the children could hardly be coerced to go into the water afterwards the washing among the chimney sweepers of the present day when there are scarcely any climbing boys is so much an individual matter that it is not possible to speak with any great degree of certainty on the subject but that it increases may be concluded from the fact that the number of sweeps who resort to the public baths increases the first public baths and wash houses opened in london were in the northwest district and situated in george street houston square near the hamster road this establishment was founded by voluntary contribution in 1846 and is now self-supporting there are three more public baths one in golston street whitechapel on the same principle as that first established another in st martins near the national gallery which are parochial and the last in marlborough near the yorkshire stingo tavern new road also parochial the charge for a cold bath each being secluded from the others is a penny with the use of a towel a warm bath is tappens in the third class the following is the return of the number of bathers at the northwest district baths the establishment most frequented bathers 1847 110 940 1848 111 788 1849 96 726 1850 86 597 washers dryers ironers and so on 1847 39418 1848 61 690 1849 65934 1850 73 2023 individuals washed for 1847 137 672 1848 246 760 1849 263 736 1850 292 292 i endeavored to ascertain the proportion of sweepers with other working men who availed themselves of these baths but there are unfortunately no data for instituting a comparison as to the relative cleanliness of the several trades when the baths were first opened an endeavor was made to obtain such a return but it was found to be distasteful to the bathers and so was discontinued we find then that in four years there have been 406 151 bathers the following gives the proportion between the sexes a portion of 1846 being included bathers males 417 424 bathers females 47 114 total bathers 464 538 the following off in the number of bathers at this establishment is i am told attributable to the opening of new baths the people of course resorting to the nearest i have given the return of washers and so on as i endeavored to ascertain the proportion of washing by the chimney sweepers wives but there is no specification of the trades of the persons using this branch of the establishment any more than there is of those frequenting the baths and for the same reason as prevented it's being done among the bathers one of the attendants at these wash houses told me that he had no doubt the sweepers wives did wash there for he had more than once seen a sweeper waiting to carry home the clothes his wife had cleansed as no questions concerning their situation in life are asked of the poor women who resort to these very excellent institutions for such they appear to be on a cursory glance of course no data can be supplied this is to be somewhat regretted but a regard to the feelings and in some respects to the small prejudices of the industrious poor is to be commended rather than otherwise and the managers of these baths certainly seem to have manifested such a regard i'm informed however by the secretary of the northwest district institution that in some weeks of the summer eighty chimney sweepers bathed there always having he believed warm baths which are more effective in removing soot or dirt from the skin than cold summer it must be remembered is the sweeps brisk season in a winter week as few as 25 or 20 have bathed but the weekly average of sweeper bathers the year through is about 50 and the number of sweeper bathers he thought had increased since the opening of the baths about 10% yearly as in 1850 the average number of bathers of all classes did not exceed 1646 per week the proportion of sweepers 50 is high the number of female bathers is about one ninth so that the males would be about 1480 and the 50 sweepers a week constitute about a 30th part of the whole of the third class bathers the number of sweep bathers was known because a sweep is known by his appearance i was told by the secretary that the sweepers the majority bathing on saturday nights usually carried a bundle to the bath this contained their clean things after bathing they assumed their sunday clothes and from the change in their appearance between ingress and egress they were hardly recognizable as the same individuals in the other baths where also there is no specification of the bathers i am told that of sweepers bathing the number on computation is 30 at marlebone 25 at gallstone street and 15 at the least at st martins as a weekly average in all 120 sweepers bath weekly or about a seventh of the entire working body the increase at the three baths last mentioned in sweepers bathing is from 5 to 10 percent among the lower class sweepers there are but few who wash themselves even once throughout the year they eat drink and sleep in the same state of filth and dirt as when engaged in their daily avocation others however among the better class are more cleanly in their habits and wash themselves every night between the appearance of the sweepers in the streets at the present time and before the abolition of the system of climbing there is a marked difference charles lamb said in 1823 i like to meet a sweep understand me not a grown sweeper old chimney sweepers are by no means attractive but one of those tender novices blooming through their first niggurtude the maternal washings not quite effaced from the cheek such as come forth with the dawn or somewhat earlier with their little professional notes sounding like the peep peep of a young sparrow or like her to the mat and lark should i pronounce them in their aerial ascents not seldom anticipating the sunrise throughout his essay elia throws the halo of poetry over the child sweepers calling them dim specs poor blots innocent blacknesses young africans of our own growth the natural kindliness of the writer shines out through all he counsels the reader to give the young innocent tuppence or if the weather were starving let the demand on thy humanity rise to a tester sixpence the appearance of the little chimney sweepers as they trotted along at the masters or the journeyman's heels or waited at rich men's doors on a cold morning was puttable in the extreme if it snowed there was a strange contrast between the black suitiness of the sweep stress and the white flakes of snow which adhered to it the boy sweeper trotted listlessly along a sack to contain the suit thrown over his shoulder or disposed around his neck like a cape or shawl one master sweeper tells me that in his apprenticeship days he had to wait at the great mansions in and about governor square on some bitter wintery mornings until he felt as if his feet although he had both stockings and shoes and many young climbers were barefoot felt as if frozen to the pavement when the door was opened he told me the matter was not really mended the rooms were often large and cold and being lighted only with a candle or two no doubt looked very dreary while there was not a fire in the whole house and no one up but a yawning servant or two often very cross that having been disturbed the servants however in nobleman's houses he also told me were frequently kind to him giving him bread and butter and sometimes bread and jam and as his master generally had a glass of raw spirit handed to him the boy usually had a sip when his employer had knocked off his glass his employer indeed sometimes said oh he's better without it it'll only learn him to drink like it did me but the servant usually answered oh here just a thimbleful for him the usual dress of the climbing boy as i have learned from those who had worn it themselves and when masters had provided it for their boys was made of a sort of strong flannel which many years ago was called chimney sweepers cloth but my informant was not certain whether this was a common name for it or not he only remembered having heard it called so he remembered also accompanying his master to do something to the flues in a church then 1817 hung with black cloth as a part of the national mourning for the princess charlotte of wales and he thought it seemed very like the chimney sweepers cloth which was dark colored when new the child sweep wore a pair of cloth trousers and over that a sort of tunic or tight fitting shirt with sleeves sometimes a little waistcoat and jacket this it must be born in mind was only the practice among the best masters who always had to find their apprentices in clothes and was the practice among them more and more in the later period of the climbing process for householders began to inquire as to what sort of trim the boys employed on their premises appeared in the poorer or the less well disposed masters clad the urchins who climbed for them in any old drags which their wives could piece together or in any low priced garment picked up in such places as rosemary lane the fit was no object at all these ill clad lads were moreover at one time the great majority the clothes were usually made at home by the women and in the same style as regarded the seams and so on as the sacks for suit but sometimes the work was beyond the art of the sweepers wife and then the aid of some poor neighbor better skilled in the use of her scissors and needle or off some poor tailor was called in on the well-known terms of a shilling or one shilling sixpence a day and the grub the cost of a climbing boys dress I was informed varied when you according to the material of which it was made from three shilling sixpence to six shilling sixpence independently of the cost of making which in the hands of a tailor who whipped the cat or went out to work at his customer's houses would occupy a day at easy labour at a cost of one shilling sixpence or less in money and the whip cats meals perhaps another shilling sixpence beer included as to the cost of a sweepers second hand clothing it is useless to inquire but I was informed by a now thriving master that when he was about 12 years old his mistress brought him a very tidy jacket as seemed made for a gentleman's son in petticoat lane one Sunday morning for one shilling sixpence while other things he said were in proportionate shoes and stockings are not included in the cost of the little sweepers apparel and they were perhaps always bought second hand a few of the best masters or of those wishing to stand best in their customer's regards who sent their boys to church or to Sunday schools had then a known working attire for them either a sweepers dress of jacket and trousers unsoiled by suit or the ordinary dress of a poor lad the street appearance of the present race of sweepers all adults may every here and there bear out Charles Lam's dictum that grown sweepers are by no means attractive some of them are broad shouldered and strongly built men who as they traverse the streets sometimes look as grim as they are dingy the chimney scavenger carries the implement of his calling propped on his shoulder in the way shown in the daguerreotype which I have given his dress is usually a jacket waistcoat and trousers of dark coloured corduroy or instead of a jacket a waistcoat with sleeves over this when at work the sweeper often wears a sort of blouse or short smock frock of course strong calico or canvas which protects the corduroy suit from the suit in this description of the sweepers garb I can but speak of those whose means enable them to attain the comfort of warm apparel in the winter the poorer part of the trade often shiver shirtless under a blouse which half covers a pair of threadbare trousers the cost of the corduroy suit I have mentioned varies I was told by a sweeper who put it tersely enough from 20 shillings slop to 40 shillings slap the average runs I believe from 28 shillings to 33 shillings as regards the better class of the sweepers the diet of the journeyman sweepers and the apprentices and sometimes of their working employer was described to me as generally after the following fashion my informant a journeyman calculated what his food stood his master as he had once kept his self bread and butter and coffee for breakfast tuppence daily a savalloy and potatoes or cabbage or a faggot with the same vegetables or fried fish but not often or pudding from a pudding shop or soup a tuppany plate from a cheap eating house average from tuppence to thruppence tuppence hapeny daily tea same as breakfast tuppence daily total sixpence hapeny daily on sundays the fair was better they then sometimes had a bit of prime fat mutton taken to the oven with taters to bake along with it or a fry of liver if the old woman was in a good humour and always a pint of beer apiece hence as some give their men beer the average amount of five shillings or six shillings weekly which I have given as the cost of the board to the masters is made up the drunken single-handed mastermen I am told live on beer and a bite of anything they can get I believe there are few complaints of inefficient food the food provided by the large or high master sweepers is generally of the same kind as the master and his family per takeoff among this class the journeymen are tolerably well provided for in the lower class sweepers however the food is not so plentiful nor so good in kind as that provided by the high master sweepers the expense of keeping a man employed by a large master sometimes ranges as high as eight shillings a week but the average I am told is about six shillings a week while those employed by the low class sweepers average about five shillings a week the cost of their lodging may be taken at from one shilling to two shillings a week extra the sweepers in general are I am assured fond of oleaginous food fat broth faggots and what is often called greasy meat they are considered a short-lived people and among the journeymen the masters on their own hook and so on few old men are to be met with in one of the reports of the board of health out of four thousand three hundred and twelve deaths among males of the age of fifteen and upwards the mortality among the sweepers masters and men was nine or one in one hundred and nine of the whole trade as the calculation was formed however from data supplied by the census of 1841 and on the post office directory it supplies no reliable information as I shall show when I come to treat off the nightmare many of these men still suffer I am told from the chimney sweepers cancer which is said to arise mainly from uncleanly habits some sweepers assure me that they have vomited balls of soot as to the abodes of the master sweepers I can supply the following account of two the suit I should observe is seldom kept long rarely a month on the premises of a sweeper and is in the best concerns kept in sellers the localities in which many of the sweepers reside are the lowest places in the district many of the houses in which I found a lower class of sweepers were in a ruinous and filthy condition the high class sweepers on the other hand live in respectable localities often having back premises sufficiently large to stow away their suit I had occasion to visit the house of one of the persons from whom I obtained much information he is a master in a small way a sensible man and was one of the few who are tea totalers his habitation though small being a low house only one story high was substantially furnished with massive mahogany chairs table chests of drawers and so on while on each side of the fireplace which was distinctly visible from the street over a hall door were two buffets with glass doors well filled with glass and china vessels it was a wet night and a fire burned brightly in the stove by the light of which might be seen the master of the establishment sitting on one side while his wife and daughter occupied the other a neighbour sat before the fire with his back to the door and altogether it struck me as a comfortable looking evening party they were resting and chatting quietly together after the labour of the day and everything betokened the comfortable circumstances in which the man by sobriety and industry had been able to place himself yet this man had been a climbing boy and one of the unfortunates who had lost his parents when a child and was apprenticed by the parish to this business from him I learned that his was not a solitary instance of tea totalism I have before spoken of another that in fact there were some more and one in particular named brown who was a good speaker and devoted himself during his leisure hours at night in advocating the principles by which experience he had found to affect such great good to himself but he also informed me that the majority of the others were a drunken and dissipated crew sunk to the lowest degree of misery yet recklessly spending every farthing they could earn in the public house different in every respect was another house which I visited in the course of my inquiries in the neighborhood of H Street Bethnal Green the house was rented by a sweeper a master on his own account and every room in the place was led to sweepers and their wives or women which with these men often signify one and the same thing the inside of the house looked as dark as a culpit there was an insufferable smell of soot always offensive to those unaccustomed to it and every person and everything which met the eye even to the caps and gowns of the women seemed as if they had just been steeped in india ink in one room was a sweep and his women quarrelling as I opened the door I caught the words I'm damned if I has it any longer I'd see you be blank why well damned first and you know it the savage was intoxicated for his red eyes flashed through their sooty mask with drunken excitement and his matted hair which looked as if it had never known a comb stood out from his head like the whale-borne ribs of his own machine be blank why bet as he called her did not seem a bit more sober than her man and the shrill treble of her voice was distinctly audible till I turned the corner of the street whether I was accompanied by the master of the house to whom I had been recommended by one of the fraternity as an intelligent man and one who knew a thing or two you see he said as we turn the corner there isn't no use of talking to them your fellows they're all intoxicated now and he doesn't care nothing for nobody but they'll be quiet enough tomorrow set the yarn something and if they do then they'll be just as bad tomorrow night they're awful lot and nobody'll never do anything with them this man was not by any means in such easy circumstances as the master first mentioned he was merely a man working for himself and unable to employ anyone else in the business as his customary with some of these people he had taken the house he had shown me to let to lodgers of his own class making something by so doing though if his own account be correct I'm at a loss to imagine how he contrived even to get his rent from him I obtained the following statement yes I was a climbing boy and served a regular apprenticeship for seven years I was out on my apprenticeship when I was 14 father was a silk weaver and at all he knew to keep me from being a sweep but I would be a sweep and nothing else note this is not so very uncommon a predilection strange as it may seem end note so father when he saw it was no use got me bound printers father's alive now and near 90 years of age I don't know why I wish to be a sweep except it was this there was sweeps always lived about here and I used to see the boys with lots of money a tossing and gambling and wish to have money too you see they got money where they swept the chimneys they used to get tuppence or thruppence for their cells in a day and sometimes six pence from the people of the house and that's the way they always had plenty of money I never thought anything of the climbing it wasn't so bad at all as some people would make you believe there are two or three ways of climbing in wide flows you climb with your elbows and your legs spread out your feet pressing against the sides of the flu but in narrow flows such as nine inch ones you must slant it you must have your sides in the angles it's wider there and go up just that way note here he threw himself into position placing one arm close to his side with the palm of the hand turned outwards as if pressing the side of the flu and extending the other arm high above his head the hand apparently pressing in the same manner end note there he continued that's slanton you just put yourself in that way and see how small you make yourself I never got to say stuck myself but a many of them did yes and were taken out dead they were smothered for want of air and the fright and a stain so long in the flu you see the waistband of their trousers sometimes cut turned down in the climbing and in narrow flows were not able to get it up then they stuck I had a boy once we were called to sweep a chimney down at poplar when we went in he looked up at the flows well what is it like I said very narrow says he don't think I can get up there so after some time we get on top of the house and takes off the chimney pot and has a look down it was wider atop and I thought is how he could go down you had better buff it Jim says I I suppose you know what that means but Jim wouldn't do it and kept his trousers on so down he goes and gets on very well till he comes to the shoulder of the flu and then he couldn't stir he shouts down I'm stuck I shouts up and tells him what to do can't move says he I'm stuck hard and fast well the people of the house get frettied like but I says to them now my boy's stuck but for heaven's sake don't make a word of noise don't say a word good or bad and I'll see what I can do so I locks the door and buffs it and forces myself up till I could reach him with my hand and as soon as he got his foot on my hand he begins to prize himself up and gets loosened and comes out at the top again I was stuck myself but I was stronger than he and I managed to get out again now I'll be bound to say if there was another master there as would kick up a row and a worded that year boy had never come out of that year flew alive there was a many of them lost their lives in that way most all the apprentices used to come from the house note workhouse and note there was nobody to care for them and some masters used them very bad I was out of my time at 14 and began to get too stout to go up the flows so after knocking about for a year or so as I could do nothing else I goes to sea on board a man a war and was away for a year many of the boys when they got too big and useless used to go to sea in them days they couldn't do nothing else yes many of them went for soldiers and I know some who went for gypsies and others who went for play actors and a many who got on to be swell mobsmen and thieves and housebreakers and the like of that year there ain't nothing of that sort of going on now since the act of parliament when I got back from sea father asked me to learn his business so I takes to the silk weaving and learned it and then married a weaver s and worked with father for a long time father was very well off well off and comfortable for a poor man but trade was good then but it got bad afterwards and none of us was able to live at it so I takes to the chimney sweeping again a man might manage to live somehow at the sweeping but the weaving was a no use it was the foreign silks has beat us all up that's the whole truth yet they tell us as how they was a do in the country good but they may tell that to the marines the sailors won't believe it not a word on it I've stuck to the sweeping ever since and sometimes done very fair at it but since the act there's so many leaks come to it that I don't know how they live they must be eating one another up well since you ask then I can tell you that our people don't care much about law they don't understand anything about politics much they don't mind things of that here kind they only minds to get drunk when they can some of them fellows as you see in there never cleans themselves from one year's end to the other they'll kick up a row soon enough with chartists or anybody else I think some chartists are a weak minded set they was too much a frighted at nothing a hundred of them would run away from one blue coat and that wasn't like men I was often at chartist meetings and if they'd only do all they said there was a plenty to stick to them for there's a something wants to be done very bad where everything is a getting worse or and worse or every day I used to do a good trade but now I don't yarn a shilling a day all through the year I may walk at this time three or four miles and not get a chimney to sweep and then get only a sixpence or thruppence or sometimes nothing it's a starving that's what it is there's so much querying are going on querying that's what we call underworking note querying means literally inquiring or asking for work at the different houses the queriers among the sweeps are a kind of peddler operatives end note if they'd all fix a regular price we might do very well still I'm 50 years of age or thereabouts I don't know much about the story of mrs montague it was a for my time I heard of it though I heard my mother talk about it she used to read it out of books she was a great reader none of them could stand for her for that I was often at the dinner the master's dinner that was for the boys but that's all done away long ago since the act of parliament I can't tell how many there was at it but there's such a lot it's impossible to tell how could anyone tell all the sweeps as is in London I'm sure I can't and I'm sure nobody else can some years back the sweepers houses were often indicated by an elaborate sign highly coloured a sweeper accompanied by a chummy once a common name for the climbing boy being a corruption of chimney was depicted on his way to a red brick house from the chimneys of which bright yellow flames were streaming below was the detail of the things undertaken by the sweep such as the extinction of fires and chimneys the cleaning of smokejacks and so on and so on a few of these signs greatly faded maybe seen still a sweeper who is settled in what is accounted a gentile neighbourhood has now another way of making his calling known he leaves a card whenever he hears of a newcomer a tape being attached so that it can be hung up in the kitchen and thus the servants are always in possession of his address the following is a customary style chimneys swept by the improved machine much patronised by the humane society w h chimney sweeper and nightman one blank news in returning thanks to the inhabitants of the surrounding neighbourhood for the patronage he has hitherto received begs to inform them that he sweeps all kinds of chimneys and flues in the best manner w h attending to the business himself cleans smokejacks cures smoky coppers and extinguishes chimneys when on fire with the greatest care and safety and by giving the strictest personal attendance to business performs what he undertakes with cleanliness and punctuality whereby he hopes to ensure a continuance of their favours and recommendations clean cloths for upper apartments suit doors to any size fixed observe the address one blank muse near blank at the top of this card is an engraving of the machine at the foot a rude sketch of a nightman's cart with men at work all the cards I saw reiterated the address so that no mistake might lead the customer to a rival tradesman as to their politics the sweepers are somewhat similar to the dustmen and costar mongers a fixed hatred to all constituted authority which they appear to regard as the police and the beaks seems to be the sum total of their principles indeed it almost assumes the character of a fixed law that persons and classes of persons who are themselves disorderly and to a certain extent lawless always manifest the most supreme contempt for the conservators of law and order in every degree the police are therefore hated heartily magistrates are feared and abominated and queen lords and commons and everyone in authority if known anything about are considered as natural enemies a costar monger who happened to be present while I was making inquiries on this subject broken with this remark the costars is the chaps the government can't do nothing with them they always licks the government the sweepers have a sovereign contempt for all acts of parliament because the only act that had any reference to themselves through open as they call it their business to all who were needy enough and who had the capability of availing themselves of it like the dusties they are I'm informed in their proper element in times of riot and confusion but unlike them they are to a man chartists understanding it to and approving of it not because it would be calculated to establish a new order of things but in the hope that in the transition from one system to the other there might be plenty of noise and riot and in the vague idea that in some indefinable manner good must necessarily accrue to themselves from any change that might take place this I believe to be in perfect keeping with the sentiments of similar classes of people in every country in the world the journeymen lay by no money when in work as a fund to keep them when incapacitated by sickness accident or old age there are however a few exceptions to the general improvidence of the class some few belong to sick and benefit societies others are members of burial clubs where however this is not the case and a sweeper becomes unable through illness to continue his work the mode usually adopted is to make a raffle for the benefit of the sufferer the same means are resorted to at the death of a member of the trade when a chimney sweeper becomes infirm through age he has mostly if not invariably no refuge but the workhouse the chimney sweepers generally are regardless of the marriage ceremony and when they do live with the women it is in a state of concubinage these women are always among the lowest of the street girls such as lucifer match and orange girls some of the very poorest of the costar girls and girls brought up among the sweepers they are treated badly by them and often enough left without any remorse the women are equally as careless in these matters as the men and exchange one paramour for another with the same levity so that there is a promiscuous intercourse continually going on among them i'm informed that among the worst class of sweepers living with women not one in 50 is married to these couples very few children are born but i am not able to state the proportion as compared with other classes there are some curious customs among the london sweepers which deserve notice their mayday festival is among the best known the most intelligent of the masters tell me that they have taken this from the milkman's garland of which an engraving has been given formerly say they on the first of may the milkman of london went through the streets performing a sort of dance for which they received gratuities from their customers the music to which they danced was simply brass plates mounted on poles from the circumference of which plates depended numerous bells of different tones according to size these poles were adorned with leaves and flowers indicative of the season and may have been a relic of one of the ancient pageants or mummies the sweepers however by adapting themselves more to the rude taste of the people appear to have completely supplanted the milkman who are now never seen in pageantry in struts sports and pastimes of the people of england i find the following with reference to the milk people it is at this time that is in may says the author of one of the papers in the spectators we see brisk young wenches in the country parishes dancing around the maypole it is likewise on the first day of this month that we see the ruddy milkmaid exerting herself in a most sprightly manner under a pyramid of silver tankards and like the virgin tarpia oppressed by the costly ornaments which her benefactors lay upon her these decorations of silver cups tankards and salvers were borrowed for the purpose and hung around the milkpales with the addition of flowers and ribbons which the maidens carried upon their heads when they went to the houses of their customers and danced in order to obtain a small gratuity from each of them in a set of prints called tempest's cries of london there is one called the merry milkmaid whose proper name was kate smith she is dancing with the milk pail decorated as above mentioned upon her head of late years the plate with the other decorations were placed in a pyramidical form and carried by two chairman upon a wooden horse the maidens walked before it and performed the dance without any encumbrance i really cannot discover what analogy the silver tankards and salvers can have to the business of the milkmaids i have seen them act with much more propriety upon this occasion when in place of these superfluous ornaments they substituted a cow the animal had her horns gilt and was nearly covered with ribbons of various colors farmed into bows and roses and interspersed with green oaken leaves and bunches of flowers with reference to the mayday festival of the sweepers the same author says the chimney sweepers of london have also singled out the first of may for their festival at which time they parade the streets in companies disguised in various manners their dresses are usually decorated with gilt paper and other mock fineries they have their shovels and brushes in their hands which they rattle one upon the other and to this rough music they jump about in imitation of dancing some of the larger companies have a fiddler with them and a jack in the green as well as a lord and lady of the may who follow the minstrel with great stateliness and dance as occasion requires the jack in the green is a piece of pageantry consisting of a hollow frame of wood or wicker work made in the form of a sugar loaf but open at the bottom and sufficiently large and high to receive a man the frame is covered with green leaves and bunches of flowers interwoven with each other so that the man within may be completely concealed who dances with his companions and the populace are mightily pleased with the oddity of the moving pyramid since the date of the above the sweepers have greatly improved on their pageant substituting for the fiddle the more noisy and appropriate music of the street showman's drum and pipes and adding to their party several diminutive imps no doubt as representatives of the climbing boys clothed in caps jackets and trousers thickly covered with party-coloured shreds these still make a show of rattling their shovels and brushes but the clatter is unheard alongside the thunders of the drum in this manner they go through the various streets for three days obtaining money at various places and on the third night hold a feast at one of their favourite public houses where all the sooty tribes resort and in company with their wives or girls keep up their festivity till the next morning i find that this festival is beginning to disappear in many parts of london but it still holds its ground and is as highly enjoyed as ever in all the eastern localities of the metropolis it is but seldom that any of the large masters go out on may day this custom is generally confined to the little masters and their men the time usually spent on these occasions is four days during which as much as from two pounds to four pounds a day is collected the sums obtained on the three first days are divided according to the several kinds of work performed but the proceeds of the fourth day are devoted to a supper the average gains of the several performers on these occasions are as follows my lady who acts as columbine and receives two shillings per day my lord who is often the master himself but usually one of the journeymen three shillings per day clown three shillings per day drummer four shillings per day check in the green who is often an individual acquaintance and does not belong to the trade three shillings per day and the boys who have no term applied to them receive from one shilling to one shilling six pounds per day the share occurring to the boys is often spent in purchasing some article of clothing for them but the money got by the other individuals is mostly spent in drink the sweepers however not only go out on mayday but likewise on the fifth of november on the last guy fox day i am informed some of them received not only pens from the public but silver and gold it was quite a harvest they say one of this class who got up a gigantic guy fox and figure of the pope on the fifth of november 1850 cleared i am informed 10 pounds over and above all expenses for many years also the sweepers were in the habit of partaking of a public dinner on the first of may provided for every climbing boy who thought proper to attend at the expense of the honorable mrs montague the romantic origin of this custom from all i could learn on the subject is this the lady referred to at the time a widow lost her son then a boy of tender years inquiries were set on foot and all london heard of the mysterious disappearance of the child but no clue could be found to trace him out it was supposed that he was kidnapped and the search at length was given up in despair a long time afterwards a sweeper was employed to cleanse the chimneys of mrs montague's house by portman square and for this purpose as was usual at the time sent a climbing boy up the chimney who from that moment was lost to him the child did not return the way he went up but it is supposed that in his descent he got into a wrong flu and found himself on getting out of the chimney in one of the bedrooms weird with his labor it is said that he mechanically crept between the sheets all black and sooty as he was in this state he was found fast asleep by the housekeeper the delicacy of his features and the soft tones of his voice interested the women she acquainted the family with the strange circumstance and when introduced to them with a clean face his voice and appearance reminded them of their lost child it may have been that the hardships he endured at so early an age had impaired his memory for he could give no account of himself but it was evident from his manners and from the ease which he exhibited that he was no stranger to such places and at length it is said the honorable mrs montague recognized in him her long lost son the identity it was understood was proved beyond doubt he was restored to his rank in society and in order the better to commemorate the singular restoration and the fact of his having been a climbing boy his mother annually provided an entertainment on the first of may at white conduit house for all the climbing boys of london who thought proper to partake of it this annual feast was kept up during the lifetime of the lady and as might be expected was numerously attended for since there were no question asked and no document required to prove any of the guests to be climbing boys very many of the precocious urchins of the metropolis used to blacken their faces for this special occasion this annual feast continued as i have said as long as the lady lived her son continued it only for three or four years afterwards and then i am told left the country and paid no further attention to the matter of the story of the young montague charles lamb has given the following account in one of the state beds at arndell castle a few years since under a ducal canopy that seat of the howards is an object of curiosity to visitors chiefly for its beds in which the late duke was especially a connoisseur encircled with curtains of delicatist crimson with starry coronets interwoven folded between a pair of sheets whiter and softer than the lap where venus lulled asenius was discovered by chance after all methods of search had failed at noonday fast asleep a lost chimney sweeper the little creature having somehow confounded his passage among the intricacies of those lordly chimneys by some unknown aperture had alighted upon this magnificent chamber and tired with his tedious explorations was unable to resist the delicious indictment to repose which he there saw exhibited so creeping between the sheets very quietly he laid his black head on the pillow and slept like a young howard a high instinct and slam was at work in the case or i am greatly mistaken is it probable that a poor child of that description with whatever weariness he might be visited would have ventured under such a penalty as he would be taught to expect to uncover the sheets of a duke's bed and deliberately to lay himself down between them when the rug or the carpet presented an obvious couch still far above his pretensions is this probable i would ask if the great power of nature which i contend for had not been manifested within him prompting to the adventure doubtless this young nobleman for such my mind misgives me he must be was allured by some memory not amounting to full consciousness of his condition in infancy when he was used to be lacked by his mother or his nurse in just such sheets as he there found into which he was now but creeping back as into his proper incubation in colabula and resting place by no other theory than by his sentiment of a pre-existent state as i may call it can i explain a deed so venturous there is a strong strain of romance throughout the stories of the lost and found young montague i converged with some sweepers on the subject the majority had not so much as heard of the occurrence but two who had heard of it both climbing boys in their childhood had heard that the little fellow was found in his mother's house in a small work the chimney sweepers friend caught up in aid of the society for the supersedence of climbing boys by some benevolent quaker ladies and others the quakers having been among the warmest supporters of the suppression of climbers and arranged the word edited not being used by jay Montgomery the case of the little montague is not mentioned accepting in two or three vague poetical illusions the account given by lamb although pronounced apocryphal by some appears to be the more probable version and to the minds of many is shown to be conclusively authentic as i understand that when arando castle is shown to visitors the bed in which the child was found is pointed out nor is it likely that in such a place the story of the ducal bed and the little climbing boy would be invented the following account was given by the wife of a respectable man now a middle-aged woman and she had often heard it from her mother who passed a long life in the neighborhood of mrs montague's residence lady m had a son of tender years who was supposed to have been stolen for the sake of his clothes sometime after there was an occasion when the sweeps were necessary at montague house a servant noticed one of the boys being at first attracted by his superior manner and her curiosity being excited fancied a resemblance in him to the lost child she questioned his master respecting him who represented that he had found him crying and without a home and there upon took him in and brought him up to his trade the boy was questioned apart from his master as to the treatment he received his answers were favorable and the consequence was a compensation was given to the man and the boy was retained all doubt was removed as to his identity the annual feast at white condom so agreeable to the black fraternity was afterwards continued in another form and was the origin of a well-known society among the master sweepers which continued in existence till the abolition of the climbing boys by act of parliament the masters and the better class of men paid a certain sum yearly for the purpose of binding the children of the contributors to other trades in order to increase the funds of this institution as the dinner to the boys at white conduit house was an established thing the masters continued it and the boys of every master who belonged to the society went in a sort of state to the usual place of entertainment every first of may where they were regaled as formerly many persons were in the habit of flocking on this day to white conduit house to witness the festivities of the sweepers on this occasion and usually contributed something towards the society as soon however as the act passed this also was discontinued and it is now one of the legends connected with the class end of section 67