 Section 64 of London Labour and the London Poor, Volume 2 by Henry Mayhew. This livery box recording is in the public domain, recording by Gillian Henry. Of the London Chimney Sweepers. Chimney Sweepers are a consequence of two things, chimneys and the use of coals as fuel, and these are both commodities of comparatively recent introduction. It is generally admitted that the earliest mention of chimneys is in an Italian manuscript, preserved in Venice, in which it is recorded that chimneys were thrown down in that city from the shock of an earthquake in 1347. In England, down even to the commencement of the reign of Elizabeth, the greater part of the houses in our towns had no chimneys. The fire was kindled on a hearthstone on the floor, or on a raised grate against the wall or in the centre of the apartment, and the smoke found its way out of the doors, windows or casements. During the long, and as regards civil strife, generally peaceful, reign of Elizabeth, the use of chimneys increased. In a discourse prefixed to an edition of Holland Shed's Chronicles in 1577, Harrison, the writer, complains among other things, marvelously altered for the worse in England, of the multitude of chimneys erected of late. Now we have many chimneys, he says, and our tenderlings complain of rooms, catars, and poses. Then we had none but raridoses, and our heads did never ache. Note, raridose, docile, retable, French, postergule, Italian, according to Parker's glossary of architecture, was the wall or screen at the back of an altar, seat, and so on. It was usually ornamented with panelling and so on, especially behind an altar, and sometimes was enriched with a profusion of niches, buttresses, pinnacles, statues, and other decorations which were often painted with brilliant colours. The open fire hearth, frequently used in ancient domestic halls, was likewise called a raridose. In the description of Britain prefixed to Holland Shed's Chronicles, we are told that formerly, before chimneys were common in mean houses, each man made his fire against a raridose in the hall, where he dined undressed his meat. The original word would appear to be docile, or raridosal, for Kellum, in his Norman Dictionary, explains the word docile, or docile, to signify a hanging or canopy of silk, silver, or goldwork, under which kings or great personages sit. Also the back of a chair of state, the word being probably a derivative of the Latin, dorsum, the back. Dos, in slang, means a bed, a dosing crib, being a sleeping place, and has clearly the same origin. A raridose, or raridosal, would thus appear to have been a screen placed behind anything. I am told that in the old houses in the north of England, erections at the back of the fire may to this day occasionally be seen, with an aperture behind for the insertion of plates, and such other things as may require warming. A correspondent says there is a raridose, or open fire-hearth, now to be seen in the extensive and beautiful ruins of the Abbey of St Agatha in the northriding of Yorkshire. The ivy now hangs over and partially conceals this raridose, but its form is tolerably perfect, and the stones are still coloured by the action of the fire, which was extinguished, I need hardly say, by the cold water thrown on such places by Henry the Eighth. End note. He demers, too, to the change in the material of which the houses were constructed. Houses were once builded of willow, then we had oaken men, but now houses are made of oak, and our men not only become willow, but a great many altogether of straw, which is a sore alteration. In Shakespeare's time, the chimney sweepers seem to have become a recognised class of public cleansers. For in Cymbeline, the poet says, Fear no more the heat of the sun, nor the furious winter's rages, though thy worldly task has done, homework gone, and tame thy wages. Golden lads and girls all must, as chimney sweepers, come to dust. In this beautiful passage there is an intimation by the chimney sweepers, being contrasted with the golden lads and girls, that their employment was regarded as of the meanest, a repute it bears to the present day. The chimneys seem like the sweeps or sweepers to have been a necessity of a change of fuel. In the days of raridoses, our ancestors burnt only wood, so that they were not subjected to so great an inconvenience as we should be, where our fire kindled without the vent of the chimney. Our fuel is coal, which produces a greater quantity of soot and of black smoke, which is the result of imperfect combustion than any other fuel, the smoke from wood being thin and pure in comparison. The first mention of the use of coal as fuel occurs in a charter of Henry III, granting licence to the burgesses of Newcastle to dig for coal. In 1281 Newcastle is said to have had some slight trade in this article. Shortly afterwards, coal began to be imported into London for the use of smiths, brewers, dyers, soap boilers and so on. In 1316, during the reign of Edward I, its use in London was prohibited because of the supposed injurious influence of the smoke. In 1600, the use of coal in the metropolis became universal. About 200 vessels were employed in the London trade, and about 200,000 children annually imported. In 1848, however, there were, besides the railway-born coals, 12,267 cargos imported, or 3,418,340 tons. The London coal trade now employs 2,700 vessels and 21,600 seamen, and constitutes one-fourth of the whole general trade of the Thames. To understand the necessity for chimney sweepers and the extent of the work for them to do, that is to say the quantity of soot deposited in our chimneys during the combustion of the three and a half millions of tons of coals that are now annually consumed in London, we must first comprehend the conditions upon which the evolution of soot depends. Soot being simply the fine carbonaceous particles condensed from the smoke of coal fuel and deposited against the sides of the chimneys during its ascent between the walls to the tops of our houses. These conditions appear to have been determined somewhat accurately during the investigations of the Smoke Prevention Committee. There are two kinds of smoke from the ordinary materials of combustion, a opaque or black smoke, b transparent or invisible smoke. A, the opaque smoke, though the most offensive and annoying from its dirtying properties, is, like the muddiest water, the least injurious to animal or vegetable health. It consists of the particles of unconsumed carbon that have not been deposited in the form of soot in the flu or chimney. This is the black smoke which will be further described. B, transparent smoke, is composed of gases which are for the most part invisible, such as carbonic acid and carbonic oxide. Also of sulfurous acid, but smokes with that component are both visible and invisible. The sulfurous acid is said by Professor Brandt to destroy vegetation, for it has long been a cause of wonder why vegetation in towns did not flourish, since carbonic acid, which is so largely produced from the action of our fires, is the vital air of trees, shrubs and plants. Note, it has been notorious for many years that flowers will not bloom in any natural luxuriance and that fruit will not properly ripen in the heart of the city. Whilst this is an unquestionable fact, it is also a fact that greatly as suburban dwellings have increased and truly as London may be said to have gone into the country, the greater quantity of the large, excellent, unfailing and cheap supply of the fruits and vegetables in the London green markets are grown within a circle of from 10 to 12 miles from St Paul's. In the course of my inquiries, in the series of letters on labour and the poor in the morning chronicle, into the supply and so on to the green markets of the metropolis, I was told by an experienced market gardener who had friends and connections in several of the suburbs that he fancied and others in the trade were of the same opinion that no gardening could be anything but a failure if attempted within where the fogs went. My informant explained to me that the fogs, so peculiar to London, did not usually extend beyond three or four miles from the heart of the city. He was satisfied, he said, that within half a mile or so of this reach of fog, the gardener's labour might be crowned with success. He knew nothing of any scientific reason for his opinion, but as far as a purely London fog extended, without regard to any mist pervading the whole country as well as the neighbourhood of the capital, he thought it was the boundary within which there could be no proper growth of fruit or flowers. That the London fog has its limits as regards the manifestation of its greatest density, there can be no doubt. My informant was frequently asked, when on his way home, by omnibus drivers and others whom he knew, and met on their way to town a few miles from it, How's the fog, sir? How far? The extent of the London fog then, if the information I have cited be correct, may be considered as indicating that portion of the metropolis where the population and consequently the smoke is the thickest, and within which agricultural and horticultural labourers cannot meet with success. The nuisance of a November fog in London, Mr Booth stated to the smoke committee, is most assuredly increased by the smoke of the town, arising from furnaces and private fires. It is vapour saturated with particles of carbon, which causes all that uneasiness and pain in the lungs, and the uneasy sensations which we experience in our heads. I have no doubt of the density of these fogs arriving from this carbonaceous matter. The loss from the impossibility of promoting vegetation in the district most subjected to the fog is nothing as the whole ground is already occupied for the thousand purposes of a great commercial city. The matter is, however, highly curious as a result of the London smoke. Concerning the frequency of fogs in the district of the immediate neighbourhood of the metropolis, it is stated in Wales London that fogs appear to be owing, first, to the presence of the river, and secondly, to the fact that the superior temperature of the town produces results precisely similar to those we find to occur upon rivers and lakes, the cold, damp currents of the atmosphere which cannot act upon the air of the country districts, owing to the equality of their specific gravity, when they encounter the warmer and lighter strata over the town, displace the latter, intermixing with it and condensing the moisture. Fogs thus are often to be observed in London, whilst the surrounding country is entirely free from them. The peculiar colour of the London fogs appears to be owing to the fact that, during their prevalence, the ascent of the coal smoke is impeded, and that it is thus mixed with the condensed moisture of the atmosphere. As is well known, they are often so dense as to require the gas to be lighted in mid-day, and they cover the town with a most dingy and depressing pall. They also frequently exhibit the peculiarity of increasing density after their first formation, which appears to be owing to the descent of fresh currents of cold air towards the lighter regions of the atmosphere. They do not occur when the wind is in a dry quarter, as for instance when it is in the east, notwithstanding that there may be very considerable difference in the temperature of the air and of the water or the ground. The peculiar odour which attends the London fogs has not yet been satisfactorily explained, although the uniformity of its recurrence and its very marked character would appear to challenge elaborate examination. End note. I may here observe that several of the scientific men who gave the results of years of observation and study in their evidence to the Committee of the House of Commons remarked on the popular misunderstanding of what smoke was, it being generally regarded as something visible. But in the composition of smoke, it appears one product may be visible and another invisible, and both offensive. While, occasionally, you may have from the same materials varieties of products all invisible according to the manner to which they are supplied with air. The Committee requested Dr. Reid to prepare a definition of smoke and more especially of black smoke. The following is the substance of the doctor's definition, or rather description. One. Black smoke consists essentially of carbon separated by heat from coal or other combustible bodies. If this smoke be produced at a very high temperature, the carbon forms a loose and powdery suit, comparatively free from other substances. While the lower the temperature at which black suit is formed, the larger is the amount of other substances with which it is mingled, among which are the following. Carbon, water, resin, oily and other inflammable products of various volatilities, ammonia and carbonate of ammonia. When the carbon, oils, resin and water are associated together in certain proportions, they constitute tar. Soft pitch is produced if the tar be so far heated that the water is expelled, and hard pitch, resin blackened by carbon, when the oils are volatilized. In all cases of ordinary combustion, carbonic acid is formed by the red hot cinders, or by gases or other compounds containing carbon, acting on the oxygen of the air. This carbonic acid is discharged in general as an invisible gas. If the carbonic acid pass through red hot cinders, or any carbonaceous smoke at a high temperature, it loses one particle of oxygen and becomes carbonic oxide gas. The lost oxygen, uniting with carbon, forms an additional amount of carbonic oxide gas, which passes to the external atmosphere as an invisible gas, unless kindled in its progress, or at the top of the chimney, when its temperature is sufficiently elevated by the action of air. Carbonic oxide gas burns with a blue flame and produces carbonic acid gas. Black smoke is always associated with carbureted hydrogen gases. These may be mechanically blended with the oils and resins, but must be carefully distinguished from them. They form more essentially, when in a state of combustion, the inflammable matters that constitute flame. Two, smoke from charcoal, coke, and anthracite is always invisible if the material be dry. A flame may appear, however, if carbonic oxide be formed. Three, wood or pyrolygneous smoke is rarely black. Water and carbonic acid are the products of the full combustion of wood, omitting the consideration of the ash that remains. Four, sulfurous smokes. Tons of sulfur are annually evolved in various conditions from copperworks. Offensive sulfurous smokes are often evolved from various chemical works as gasworks, acidworks, and so on. Five, hydrochloric acid smoke is evolved in general in large quantities from alkali works. Six, metallic smokes, when ores of lead, copper, arsenic, and so on are used, often contain offensive matter in a minute state of division and suspended in the smoke evolved from the furnaces. Seven, putrescent smokes. Loaded with the products of decayed animal and vegetable matter are evolved at times from drains in visible vapours, more especially in damp weather. The fitted particles, when associated with moisture in this smoke, are entirely decomposed when subjected to heat. Dr. Ewer says, speaking of the cause of the ordinary black smoke above described, the inevitable conversion of atmospheric air into carbonic acid has been hitherto the radical defect of almost all furnaces. The consequence is that this gaseous matter is mixed with an atmosphere containing far too little oxygen, and instead of burning the carbon and hydrogen, which constitute the coal gases, the carbon is deposited partly in a pulverised form, constituting smoke or soot, and a great deal of the carbon gets half burnt and forms what is well known under the name of carbonic oxide, which is half-burnt charcoal. The ordinary smoke, Professor Faraday said in his examination before the committee, is the visible black part of the products, the unburnt portions of the carbon. If you prevent the production of carbonic oxide or carbonic acid, you increase the production of smoke. You must with coal fuel either have carbonic acid or oxide, or else black smoke. Which is the least noxious, he was asked, and answered, as far as regards health, carbonic acid and carbonic oxide are most noxious to health. But it is not so much a question of health as of cleanliness and comfort, because I believe that this town is as healthy as other places where there are not these fires. It is partly the impure coal gas evolved after the fresh charge of coal which originates the smoke, when not properly supplied with air. But it is a very mixed question. When a fresh charge of coal is put upon the fire, a great quantity of evaporable matter, which would be called impure coal gas, according to the language of the question, is produced. And as that matter travels on in the heated place, if there be a sufficient supply of air, both the hydrogen and the carbon are entirely burnt. But if there be an insufficient supply of air, the hydrogen is taken possession off first, and the carbon is set free in its black and solid form. And if that goes into the cool part of the chimney before fresh air gets to it, that carbon is so carried out into the atmosphere, and is the smoke in question. Generally speaking, the great rush of smoke is when coal is first put on the fire, and that from the want of a sufficient supply of oxygen at the right time, because the carbon is cooled so low as not to take fire. This eminent chemist stated also that there was no difference in the ultimate chemical effect upon the air between a wood fire and a coal fire. But with wood, there was not so much smoke set free in the heated place, which caused a difference in the gaseous products of wood combustion and of coal combustion. He thought that perhaps wood was the fuel which would be most favourable to health as affecting the atmosphere, in as much as it produced more water and less carbonic acid as the product of combustion. What may be called the peculiarities of a smoky and sooty atmosphere are of course more strongly developed in London than elsewhere, as the following curious statements show. In describing Metropolitan Smoke, spoke of those black portions of soot that everyone is familiar with, which annoy us, for instance, at the Houses of Parliament, to such an extent that I have been under the necessity of putting up a veil, about forty feet long and twelve feet deep, on which, on a single evening, taking the worst kind of weather for the production of soot, we can count occasionally two hundred thousand visible portions of soot, excluded at a single sitting. We count with the naked eye the number of pieces entangled upon a square inch. I have examined the amount deposited on different occasions in different parts of London at the tops of some houses, and on one occasion at the Horse Guards, the amount of soot deposited was so great that it formed a complete and continuous film, so that when I walked upon it I saw the impression of my foot left as distinctly on that occasion as when snow lies upon the ground. The film was exceedingly thin, but I could discover no want of continuity. On other occasions I have noticed in London that the quantity that escapes into individual houses is so great that in a single night I have observed a mixture of soot and of whore frost collecting at the edge of the door and forming a stripe three quarters of an inch in breadth and bearing an exact resemblance to a pepper and salt grey cloth. Those that I refer to are extreme occasions. Mr Booth mentioned that one of the gardeners of the Botanic Garden in the Regent's Park could tell the number of days sheep had been in the park from the blackness of their wool, its oleogenous power retaining the black. Dr Ewer informed the committee that a column of smoke might be seen extending in different directions around London according to the way of the wind for a distance of from 20 to 30 miles and that Sir William Herschel had told him that when the wind blew from London he could not use his great telescope at Slau. It was stated moreover that when a respirator is washed the water is rendered dirty by the particles of soot adhering to the wire gauze and which but for this would have entered the mouth. Professor Brand said on the subject of the public health being affected by smoke, I cannot say that my opinion is that smoke produces any unhealthiness in London. It is a great nuisance certainly, but I do not think we have any good evidence that it produces disease of any kind. This committee, said Mr Beckett, have been told that by the mechanical effects of smoke upon the chest and lungs disease takes place. That is, by swallowing a certain quantity of smoke the respiratory organs are injured. Can you give any opinion upon that? One would conceive, replied the professor, that this is the case but when we compare the health of London with that of any other town or place where they are comparatively free or quite free from smoke we should not find that difference which we should expect in regard to health. Mr E. Solly, lecturer on chemistry at the Royal Institution expressed his opinion of the effect of smoke upon the health of towns. My impression is, he said, that it produces decided evil in two or three ways. First mechanically the solid black carbonaceous matter produces a great deal of disease. It occasions dirt amongst the lower orders and if they will not take pains to remove it it engenders disease. If we could do away the smoke nuisance I believe a great deal of that disease would be put an end to. But there is another point and that is the bad effects produced by the gases sulfurous acid and other compounds of that nature which are given out. If we do away with smoke we shall still have those gases and I have no doubt that those gases produce a great part of the disease that is produced by smoke. On the other hand Dr Reid thought that smoke was more injurious from the dirt it created than from causing impurity in the atmosphere although it was obvious enough that the inspiration of a sooty atmosphere must be injurious to persons of a delicate constitution. Dr Eur pronounced smoke in the common sense of visible black smoke unwholesome and so eminently as the French imagine. Many witnesses stated their conviction that where poor people resided amongst smoke they felt it impossible to preserve cleanliness in their persons or their dwellings and that made them careless of their homes and indifferent to a decency of appearance so that the public house and places where cleanliness and propriety were in no great estimation became places of frequent resort in principle that if a man's home were uncomfortable he was not likely to stay in it. I think, said Mr Booth, one great effect of the evil of smoke is upon the dwellings of the poor it renders them less attentive to their personal appearance and in consequence to their social condition. It was also stated that there were certain districts inhabited by the poor where they will not hang out their clothes to be cleansed they say it is of no use to do it they will become dirty as before and consequently they do not have their clothes washed. The district specified as presenting this characteristic are St George's in the East and the neighborhood of Old Street, St Luke's. It must not be lost sight of that whatever evils, moral or physical without regarding merely pecuniary losses are inflicted by the excess of smoke they fall upon the poor and almost solely on the poor. It is the poor who must reside, as was said, and with a literality not often applicable to popular phrases in the thick of it and consequently there must either be increased washing or increased dirt. To effect the mitigation of the nuisance of smoke two points were considered. A, the substitution of some other material containing less betruminous matter for the Newcastle Coal. B, the combustion of the smoke before its emission into the atmospheric air by means of mechanical contrivances founded on scientific principles. As regards the first consideration, A, it was recommended that anthracite or stone Welsh coal which is a smokeless fuel should be used instead of the Newcastle Coal. This coal is almost the sole fuel in Philadelphia a city of quaker neatness beyond any in the United States of North America and sometimes represented as the cleanest in the world. The anthracite coal is somewhat dearer than Newcastle Coal in London but only in a small degree. Coal was also recommended as a substitute for coal in private dwellings. Are you of opinion, Dr Reid was asked that smoke may be in a great measure prevented by extending the use of gas and coke. He answered, in numerous cities where large quantities of gas are produced coke is very frequently the principal fuel of the poor and the difficulty of lighting that coke and the difficulty of having heat developed by it in sufficient quantity necessarily led me to look at the construction of the fireplaces adapted for it. And on a general review of the question I do entertain the opinion that if education were more extended amongst the humblest classes with respect to the economy of their own fireside I mean literally the fireplace at present and if gas were greatly extended so that they did not drain the coal of the gasworks of the last dregs of gaseous matter which are of very little use as gas and more to be considered as adding to the bulk for sale than as valuable gas that a coke might be left which would be easily ascendable which would be economical and which if introduced into fireplaces where an open fire is desired would entirely remove the necessity of sweeping chimneys even with machines and would at the same time give as economical a fire as any ordinary fireplace can produce for an ordinary coal fire rarely is powerful in its calorific emanations till the mass of gas has been expelled and we see the cherry red fire the amount of gas that has escaped previously to the production or coking of the fire is the gas that is valuable in a manufactory and if therefore the individual consumer could have not the hard burnt stony coke but the soft coke in the condition that would give at once a cherry red fire we should attend the two great objects economising gas and at the same time of having a lively cheerful fire this then led me to look particularly at the price of a gas lamp for a poor man in a poor man's family where the breakfast, the tea and dinner require the principal attention and he has some plain cooking utensils in the heat of summer I believe that he will produce as much heat as he wants for those purposes from a single burner which can be turned on and left all day which shall not risk any boiling over and by having this pure heat directed to the object to be warmed instead of having a heavy iron grate this plan would, if gas were generally introduced even into the humblest apartments prove a great source of economy in summer Dr. Reed also told the committee that there was a great prejudice against the use of coke many persons considering that it produced a sulfurous smell but as all ordinary coal cooked itself or became coke in an open fire and was never powerfully calorific till it became coke the prejudice would die away very little is said in the report about the smoke of private houses an allusion however is made to that portion of the investigation your committee have received the most gratifying assurances of the confident hope entertained by several of the highest scientific authorities examined by them that the black smoke proceeding from fires in private dwellings and all other places may eventually be entirely prevented either by the adoption of stoves and grates formed for a perfect combustion of the common bituminous coal or by the use of coke or of anthracite but they are of opinion that the present knowledge on that subject is not such as to justify any legislative interference with these smaller fires I should in prospect Professor Faraday said to the committee look forward to the possibility of a great reduction of the smoke from coal fires in houses but my impression is that in the present state of things it would be tyrannical to determine that that must be done which at present we do not know can be done still I think there is reason to believe that it can be affected in a very high degree Dr. Yure also thought that to extend any smoke enactment to private dwellings might be tyrannical in the present state of the chimneys but he had no doubt that smoke might be consumed in fires in private dwellings such then are the causes and remedies for smoke and consequently of soot for smoke or rather opaque smoke consists as we have seen of merely the gases of combustion with minute particles of carbon diffused throughout them and as smoke is the result of the imperfect burning of our coals it follows that chimney sweepers are but a consequence of our ignorance as we grow wiser in the art of economising our fuel we shall be gradually displacing this branch of labourers the means of preventing smoke being simply the mode of displacing the chimney sweepers and this is another of the many facts to teach us that not only are we doubling our population in 40 years but we are likewise learning every year how to do our work with a less number of workers either by inventing some piece of mechanism that will enable one hand to do as much as 100 or else doing away with some branch of labour altogether here lies the great difficulty of the time a new element, science, with its offspring, steam has been introduced into our society within the last century decreasing labour at a time when the number of our labourers has been increasing at a rate unexampled in history and the problem is how to reconcile the new social element with the old social institutions doing as little injury as possible to the community suppose for instance the smoke nuisance entirely prevented and that Professor Faraday's prophecy as to the great reduction of the smoke from coal fires in houses were fulfilled and that the expectations of the sanguine and intense committee who tell us that they have received the most gratifying assurances of the confident hope entertained by several of the highest scientific authorities that the black smoke proceeding from fires in private dwellings and all other places may be eventually entirely prevented suppose that these expectations I say be realised and there appears to be little doubt of the matter what is to become of the 1000 to 1500 sweeps who live as it were upon this very smoke surely the whole community should not suffer for them it will be said true but unfortunately the same argument is being applied to each particular section of the labouring class and the labourers make up by far the greater part of the community if we are daily displacing a thousand labourers by the annihilation of this process and another thousand by the improvement of that what is to be the fate of those we put on one side and where shall we find employment for the 100,000 new hands that are daily coming into existence among us this is the great problem for Ernest thoughtful men to work out but we have to deal here with the chimney sweepers as they are and not as they may be in a more scientific age and first as to the quantity of soot annually deposited at present in the London chimneys the quantity of soot produced in the metropolis every year may be ascertained in the following manner the larger houses are swept in some instances once a month but generally once in three months and yield on an average six bushels of soot per year a moderate sized house belonging to the middle class is usually swept four times a year and gives about five bushels of soot per annum while houses occupied by the working and poorer classes are seldom swept more than twice and sometimes only once in the twelve month and yield about two bushels of soot annually the larger houses, the residences of noblemen and the more wealthy gentry may then be said to produce an average of six bushels of soot annually the houses of the more prosperous tradesmen about five bushels while those of the humbler classes appear to yield only two bushels of soot per annum there are according to the last returns in round numbers 300,000 inhabited houses at present in the metropolis and these from the reports of the income and property tax may be said to consist as regards the average rentals of the proportions given in the next page table showing the number of houses at different average rentals throughout the metropolis number of houses whose average rental is above 50 pounds Hanover Square, Mayfair average rental, 150 pounds 8,795 houses St. James's, 128 pounds 3,460 houses St. Martin's, 119 pounds 2,323 houses London City, 117 pounds 7,329 houses Marlebone, 71 pounds 15,955 houses Strand, 66 pounds 3,938 houses West London, 65 pounds 2,745 houses St. Giles's, 60 pounds 4,778 houses Hoburn, 52 pounds 4,517 houses Total number of houses whose average rental is above 50 pounds 53,840 Number of houses whose average rental is above 30 pounds and below 50 pounds Poplar, average rental, 44 pounds 6,882 houses Pancras, 41 pounds 18,731 houses Hampstead, 40 pounds 1,719 houses Kensington, 40 pounds 17,292 houses Rockinwell, 38 pounds 7,259 houses East London, 38 pounds 4,785 houses St. Saviour's, 36 pounds 4,613 houses Westminster, 36 pounds 6,647 houses St. Olives, 35 pounds 2,365 houses Islington, 35 pounds 13,558 houses St. George's in the East, 32 pounds 6,151 houses Total number of houses whose average rental is above 30 pounds and below 50 pounds 9,002 Number of houses whose average rental is below 30 pounds Chelsea, average rental 29 pounds 7,629 houses Wandsworth, 29 pounds 8,290 houses St. Luke's, 28 pounds 6,421 houses Lambeth, 28 pounds 20,520 houses Lewisham, 27 pounds Whitechapel, 26 pounds 8,832 houses Hackney, 25 pounds 9,861 houses Camberwell, 25 pounds 9,417 houses Rotherith, 23 pounds 2,834 houses St. George's, Southwark, 22 pounds 7,005 houses Newington, 22 pounds 10,468 houses Greenwich, 22 pounds 14,423 houses Shoreditch, 20 pounds 15,433 houses Stepney, 20 pounds 16,346 houses 18 pounds, 7,095 houses Bethnoe Green, 9 pounds 13,370 houses Total number of houses whose average rental is below 30 pounds 163,880 Here we see that the number of houses whose average rental is above 50 pounds is 53,840 While those whose average rental is above 30 pounds and below 50 pounds are 90,002 in number and those whose rental is below 30 pounds are as many as 163,880 The average rental for all London, 40 pounds Now adopting the estimate before given as to the proportionate yield of suit from each of these three classes of houses, we have the following items 53,840 houses at a yearly rental above 50 pounds producing 6 bushels of suit each per annum gives 323,040 bushels of suit per annum 90,002 houses at a yearly rental above 30 pounds and below 50 pounds producing 5 bushels of suit each per annum gives 450,010 bushels of suit per annum 163,880 houses at a yearly rental below 30 pounds producing 2 bushels of suit each per annum gives 327,760 bushels of suit per annum Total number of bushels of suit annually produced throughout London 1,100,810 This calculation will be found to be nearly correct if tried by another mode The quantity of suit depends greatly upon the amount of volatile or bituminous matter in the coals used By a table given at page 169 of the second volume of this work it will be seen that the proportion of volatile matter contained in the several kinds of coal are as follows Cannell or gas coals contain 40 to 60% of volatile matter Newcastle or house coals about 37% Lancashire and Yorkshire coals 35 to 40% South Welsh or steam coals 11 to 15% Anthrocyte or stone coals none The house coals are those chiefly used throughout London so that every ton of such coals contains about 800 pounds of volatile matter a considerable proportion of which appears in the form of smoke But what proportion and what is the weight of the carbonaceous particles or suit evolved in a given quantity of smoke I know of no means of judging I am informed however by those practically acquainted with the subject that a ton of ordinary house coals will produce between a fourth and a half of a bushel of suit Note the quantity of suit deposited depends greatly on the length, draft and irregular surface of the chimney The kitchen flue yields by far the most suit for an equal quantity of coals burnt because it is of greater length The quantity above sighted is the average yield from the several chimneys of a house It will be seen hereafter that the quantity collected is only 800,000 bushels a great proportion of the chimneys of the poor being seldom swept and some cleansed by themselves End note Now there are say 3,500,000 tonnes of coal consumed annually in London But a large proportion of this quantity is used for the purposes of gas for factories, breweries, chemical works and steamboats The consumption of coal for the making of gas in London in 1849 was 380,000 tonnes so that including the quantity used in factories, breweries and so on we may perhaps estimate the domestic consumption of the metropolis at 2,500,000 tonnes yearly which for 300,000 houses would give 8 tonnes per house and when we remember the amount used in large houses and in hotels as well as by the smaller houses where each room often contains a different family this does not appear to be too high an average Mr McCulloch estimates the domestic consumption at 1 tonne per head men, women and children and since the number of persons to each house in London is 7.5 this would give nearly the same result estimating the yield of soot to be 3 eighths of a bushel per tonne we have in round numbers 1,000,000 bushels of soot as the gross quantity deposited in the metropolitan chimneys every year there are 350 master sweepers throughout London a master sweeper in a large way of business collects I am informed one day with another from 30 to 40 bushels of soot on the other hand a small master, or single handed chimneysweeper is able to gather only about 5 bushels and scarcely that one master sweeper said that about 10 bushels a day would he thought be a fair average quantity of masters, reckoning one day with another so that at this rate we should have 1,095,500 bushels for the gross quantity of soot annually collected throughout the metropolis we may therefore assume the aggregate yield of soot throughout London to be 1,000,000 bushels per annum now what is done with this immense mass of refuse matter of what use is it the soot is purchased from the masters whose perquisite it is by the farmers and dealers it is used by them principally for meadowland and frequently for land where wheat is grown not so much I understand as a manure as for some quality in it which destroys slugs and other insects injurious to the crops note, soot of coal is said by Dr. Eure in his admirable dictionary of arts and manufacturers to contain and carbonate of ammonia along with betuminous matter end note Lincolnshire is one of the great marks for the London soot whether it is transported by railway in Hartfordshire, Cambridge, Norfolk Suffolk, Essex and Kent however and many other parts London soot is used in large quantities there are persons who have large stores for its reception who purchase it from the master sweepers afterwards sell it to the farmers and send it as per order to its destination these are generally the manure merchants of whom the post office directory gives 26 names 8 being marked as dealers in Guano I was told by a sweeper in a large way of business that he thought these men bought from a half to three quarters of the soot the remainder being bought by the land cultivators in the neighbourhood of London by gardeners to keep down the insects which infest their gardens the value of the soot collected throughout London is the next subject to engage our attention many sweepers have represented it as a very curious fact and one for which they could advance no sufficient reason that the price of a bushel of soot was regulated by the price of the quarter loaf so that you had only to know that the quarter loaf was five pence which was the price of a bushel of soot this however is hardly the case at present the price of the quarter loaf not regarding the seconds or inferior bread is now at the end of December 1851 five pence to six pence according to quality the price of soot per bushel is but five pence and sometimes but four pence hypny but five pence may be taken as an average now one million bushels of soot at five pence will be found to yield 20,833 pounds six shillings eight pence per annum but the whole of this quantity is not collected by the chimney sweepers for many of the poorer persons seldom have their chimneys swept and by the table given in another place it will be seen that not more than 800,000 bushels are obtained in the course of the year by the London sweeps 800,000 bushels of soot annually collected from the London chimneys and that this is worth not less than 16,500 pounds per annum the next question is how many people are employed in collecting this quantity of refuse matter and how do they collect it and what do they get individually and collectively for so doing to begin with the number of master and journeyman sweepers employed in removing these 800,000 bushels of soot from our chimneys according to the census returns the number of sweeps in the metropolis in the years 1841 and 1831 whereas follows chimney sweepers males 20 years and upwards 1841 619 1831 421 increase in 10 years males under 20 years 1841 370 1831 no returns females 20 years and upwards 1841 44 1831 no returns total in 1841 1033 but these returns such as they are include both employers and employed in one confused mass to disentangle the economical knot we must endeavour to separate the number of master sweepers from the journeyman according to the post office directory the master sweepers amount to no more than 32 and thus there would be one more than 1000 for the number of the metropolitan journeyman sweepers these statements however appear to be very wide of the truth in 1816 it was represented to the house of residents that there were within the bills of mortality 200 masters all except the great gentleman as one witness described them who were about 20 in number themselves working at the business and that they had 150 journeyman and upwards of 500 apprentices so that there must then have been 850 working sweepers all together young and old these numbers it must be born in mind were comprised in the limits of the bills of mortality 34 years ago the parishes in the old bills of mortality were 148 there are now in the metropolis proper 176 and as a whole the area is much more densely covered with dwelling houses taking but the last 10 years 1841 to 1851 the inhabited houses have increased from 262,737 to 307,722 or in round numbers 45,000 now in 1811 the number of inhabited houses in the metropolis was 146,019 and in 1821 it was 164,948 hence in 1816 we may assume the inhabited houses to have been about 155,000 and since this number required 850 working sweepers to cleanse the London chimneys it is but a rule of three some to find how many would have been required for the same purpose in 1841 when the inhabited houses had increased to 262,737 this according to Cocker 18400 so that we must come to the conclusion either that the number of working sweepers had not kept pace with the increase of houses or that the returns of the senses were as defective in this respect as we have found them to be concerning the street sellers, dustmen and scavengers where we to pursue the same mode of calculation we should find that if 850 sweepers were required to cleanse the chimneys of 155,000 houses there should be 1687 such labourers in London now that the houses are 307,722 in number but it will be seen that in 1816 more than one half or 500 out of 850 of the working chimneys sweepers were apprentices and in 1841 the chimneys sweepers under 20 years of age if we are to believe the senses constituted more than one third of the whole body or 370 out of 1033 now as the use of climbing boys was prohibited in 1842 of course this large proportion of the trade has been rendered useless so that estimating the master and journeymen sweepers at 250 in 1816 it would appear that about 500 would be required to sweep the chimneys of the metropolis at present to these of course must be added the extra number of journeymen necessary for managing the machines and considering the journeymen to have increased 3 fold since the abolition of the climbing boys we must add 300 to the above number which will make the sum total of the individuals employed in this trade to amount to very nearly 800 by inquiries throughout the several districts of the metropolis I find that there are all together 350 master sweepers at present in London 106 of these are large masters who seldom go out and around but work to order having a regular custom among the more wealthy classes while the younger 244 consist of 92 small masters and 152 single handed masters who travel on various rounds both in London and the suburbs seeking custom of the whole number 19 reside within the city boundaries from 90 to 100 live on the Surrey side and 235 on the Middlesex side of the Thames without the city boundaries a large master employs from 2 to 10 men and two boys and a small one only two men or sometimes one man and a boy while a single handed master employs no men nor boys at all but does all the work himself the 198 masters employ among them 12 foremen 399 journeymen and 62 boys or 473 hands and adding to them the single handed master men who work at the business themselves we have 823 working men in all so that on the whole there are not less than between 800 and 900 persons employed in cleansing the London chimneys of their suit the next point that presents itself in due order to the mind is as to the mode of working among the chimney sweepers that is to say how are the 800,000 bushels of suit collected from the 300,000 houses by these 820 working sweepers but this involves a short history of the trade end of section 64 section 65 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 sweepers of old and the climbing boys formerly the chimneys used to be cleansed by the house servants for a person could easily stand erect in the huge old fashioned constructions and thrust up a broom as far as his strength would permit sometimes however straw was kindled at the mouth of the chimney and in that way the suit was consumed or brought down to the ground by the action of the fire but that there were also regular chimney sweepers in the latter part of the 16th century is unquestionable for in the days of the first James and Charles poor Piedmontese and more especially Savoyards resorted to England for the express purpose how long they laboured in this vocation is unknown the Savoyards indeed were then the general showmen and sweeps of Europe and so they are still in some of the cities of Italy and France as regards the first introduction of English children into chimneys the establishment of the use of climbing boys nothing appears according to the representations made to parliament on several occasions to be known and little attention seems to have been paid to the condition of these infants somewhere but little better until about 1780 when the benevolent Jonas Hanway who is said but not uncontradictively to have been the first person who regularly used an umbrella in the streets of London called public attention to the matter in 1788 Mr Hanway and others brought a bill into Parliament for the better protection of the climbing boys requiring among other provisions all master sweepers to be licensed and the names and ages of all their apprentices registered the House of Lords however rejected this bill and the 28th George III C48 was passed in preference the chief alterations sought to be affected by the new act where that no sweeper should have more than six apprentices and that no boy should be apprenticed at a tenderer age than eight years previously there were no restrictions in either of those respects these provisions were however very generally violated by one of those flaws or omissions so very common and so little to our legislation it was found that there was no prohibition to a sweepers employing his own children at what age he pleased and some or several for I find both words used employed their sons and occasionally their daughters in chimney climbing at the ages of six five and even between four and five years the children of others too were continually being apprenticed for no inquiry was made into the lads age beyond the statement of his parents or in the case of parish apprentices beyond the in those days not more trustworthy word of the overseers thus boys of six were apprenticed for apprenticeship was almost universal as boys of eight by their parents while parish officers and magistrates consigned the workhouse orphans of course to the starvation and tyranny which they must have known were very often in store for them when apprenticed to sweepers the following evidence was adduced before parliament on the subject of infant labour in this trade Mr John Cook a master sweeper then of great windmill street and Kentish town the first who persevered in the use of the machine years before its use was compulsory stated that it was common for parents in the business to employ their own children under the age of seven in climbing and that as far as he knew he himself was only between six and seven when he came to it and that almost all master sweepers had got it in their bills that they kept small boys for register stoves and such like as that Mr T Allen another master sweeper was between four and five when article to an uncle Mr B M Foster a private gentleman a member of the committee to promote the superseding of climbing boys said some are put to the employment very young one instance of which occurred to a child in the neighbourhood of shore ditch who was put to the trade at four and a quarter years or thereabouts the father of a child in whitechapel told me last week that his son began climbing when he was four years and eight months old I have heard of some still younger but only from vague report this sufficiently proves at what infantile years children were exposed to toils of exceeding painfulness the smaller and the more slenderly formed the child the more valuable was he for the sweeping of flues the interior of some of them to be ascended and swept being but seven inches square I have mentioned the employment of female children in the very unsuitable labour of climbing chimneys the following is all the information given on the subject Mr Tuck was asked have you ever heard of female children being so employed and replied I have heard of cases at Hadley Barnett, Windsor and Uxbridge and I know a case at Witham near Colchester of that sort Mr B M Foster said another circumstance which has not been mentioned to the committee is that there are several little girls employed there are two of the name of Morgan at Windsor daughters of the chimney sweeper who is employed to sweep the chimneys off the castle another instance at Uxbridge and at Brighton and at Whitechapel which was some years ago and at Hadley near Barnett and Witham in Essex and elsewhere he then stated on being asked do you not think that girls were employed from their physical form being smaller and thinner than boys and therefore could get up narrower the reason that I have understood was because their parents had not a sufficient number of boys to bring up to the business Mr Foster did not know the ages of these girls the enquiry by a committee of the House of Commons which led more than any other to the prohibition of this infant and yet painful labour in chimney sweeping in 1817 and they recommended the preventing the further use of climbing boys in sweeping off chimneys a recommendation not carried into effect until 1832 the matter was during the interval frequently agitated in Parliament but there were no later investigations by committees I will adduce specifically the grievances according to the report of 1817 but will first present the following extract from the evidence of Mr W. Tooke a gentleman who in accordance with the honourable Henry Gray Bennett MP and others exerted himself on the behoof of the climbing boys when he gave his evidence Mr Tooke was the secretary to a society whose object was to supersede the necessity of employing climbing boys he said in 1818 the society for bettering the condition of the poor took up the subject but little or nothing appears to have been done upon that occasion except that the most respectable master chimney sweepers entered into an association and subscription for promoting the cleanliness and health of the boys in their respective services the institution of which I am treasurer and which is now existing was formed in February 1803 in consequence of an anonymous advertisement a large meeting was held at the London Coffee House and the society was established immediate steps were then taken to ascertain the state of the trade inspectors were appointed to give an account of all the master chimney sweepers within the bills of mortality their general character their conduct towards their apprentices and the number of those apprentices it was ascertained that the total number of master chimney sweepers within the bills of mortality might be estimated at 200 who had among them 500 apprentices that not above 20 of those masters were reputable tradesmen in easy circumstances who appeared generally to conform to the provisions of the act and which 20 had upon an average from 4 to 5 apprentices each 90 of an inferior class of master chimney sweepers who averaged 3 apprentices each and who were extremely negligent both of the health, morals and education of those apprentices and about 90 the remainder of the 200 masters were a class of chimney sweepers recently journeymen who took up the trade because they had no other resource they picked up boys as they could who lodged with themselves sheds and sellers in the outskirts of the town occasionally wandering into the villages round where they slept on suit bags and lived in the grossest filth end quote the grievances I have spoken of were thus summed up by the parliamentary committee after referring to the ill usage and hardships sustained by the climbing boys the figures being now introduced for the sake of distinctness it is stated quote it is in evidence that one, they are stolen from note and sold by end note their parents and inveigled out of work houses two, that in order to conquer the natural repugnance of the infants to ascend the narrow and dangerous chimneys to clean which their labour is required blows are used that pins are forced into their feet by the boy that follows them up the chimney to ascend it and that lighted straw has been applied for that purpose three, that the children are subject to sores and bruises and wounds and burns on their thighs knees and elbows and that it will require many months before the extremities of the elbows and knees become sufficiently hard to resist the excoriations to which they are at first subject end quote one, with regard to the stealing for there was often a difficulty in procuring climbing boys I find mention in the evidence as of a matter but not a very frequent matter of notoriety one, stolen child was sold to a master sweeper for eight pounds eight shillings Mr. G. Reveley said I wish to state to the committee that case in particular because it comes home to the better sort of persons in higher life it seems that the child being asked various questions had been taken away the child was questioned how he came into that situation he said all that he could recollect was as I heard it told at that time that he and his sister with another brother were together somewhere but he could not tell where but not being able to run so well as the other two he was caught by a woman and carried away and was sold and came afterwards into the hands of the sweeper he was not afterwards restored to his family and the mystery was never unraveled but he was advertised and a lady took charge of him this child in 1804 was forced up a chimney at Bridlington in Yorkshire by a big boy the younger boy being apparently but four years old he fell and bruised his legs terribly against the great the Mrs. Auckland of Boynton who had heard of the child and to see him became interested by his manners and they took him home with him the chimney sweeper who perhaps got alarmed being glad to part with him soon after he got to Boynton the seat of Sir George Strickland a plate with something to eat was brought him on seeing a silver fork he was quite delighted and said Papa had such forks as those he also said the carpet in the drawing room was like Papa's he showed him a silver watch he asked what sort it was Papa's was a gold watch he then pressed the handle and said Papa's watch rings why does not yours Sir George Strickland on being told this circumstance showed him a gold repeater the little boy pressed the spring and when it struck he jumped about the room saying Papa's watch rings so at night when he was going to bed he said he could not go to bed with his prayers he then repeated the Lord's Prayer almost perfectly the account he gave of himself was that he was gathering flowers in his mama's garden and that the woman who sold him to the sweeper came in and asked him if he liked riding he said yes and she told him he should ride with her she put him on a horse after which they got into a vessel and the sails were put up and away we went to see if he had a name or where he lived and was too young to think his father could have any other name than that of Papa he started whenever he heard a servant in the family at Boynton called George and looked as if he expected to see somebody he knew on enquiry he said he had an uncle George whom he loved dearly he says his mama is dead and it is thought his father may be abroad from many things he says he seems to have lived chiefly with an uncle and aunt whom he invariably says were called Mr and Mrs Flambra from various circumstances it is thought impossible he should be the child of the woman who sold him his manners being very civilised quite those of a child well educated his dialect is good and that of the south of England this little boy when first discovered was conjectured to be about four years old and is described as having beautiful black eyes and eyelashes a high nose and a delicate soft skin Mr J Harding a master sweeper had a fellow apprentice who had been enticed away from his parents it is a case of common occurrence he said for children stolen to be employed in this way yes and children in particular are enticed out of work houses there are great many who come out of work houses the following cases were also submitted to the committee a poor woman had been obliged by sickness to go into a hospital and while she was there her child was stolen from her house taken into Staffordshire and there apprenticed to a chimney sweeper by some happy circumstance she learned his fate she followed him and succeeded in rescuing him from his forlorn situation another child who was an orphan was tricked into following the same wretched employment by a chimney sweeper who gave him a shilling and made him believe that by receiving it he became his apprentice the poor boy either discovering or suspecting that he had been deceived anxiously endeavored to speak to a magistrate who happened to come to the house in which he was sweeping chimneys but his master watched him so closely that he could not succeed yet last contrived to tell his story to a blind soldier who determined to write the poor boy and by great exertions succeeded in procuring him his liberty it was in country places however that the stealing and kidnapping of children was the most frequent and the threat of the sweeps will get you was often held out to deter children from wandering these stolen infants it is stated were usually conveyed to some distance by the vagrants who had secured them and sold to some master sweeper as the child of the vendors for it was difficult for sweepers in thinly peopled places to get a supply of climbing boys it was shown about the time of the parliamentary inquiry in the court of a trial at the Lancaster that a boy had been apprenticed to a sweeper by two travelling tinkers, men and women who informed him that the child was stolen from another traveller 80 miles away who was too fond of it to make it a sweep the price of the child was not mentioned respecting the sale of children to be apprenticed to sweepers Mr. Tuch was able to state that although in 1816 the practice had very much diminished of late parents in many instances still sold their children for 3, 4 or 5 guineas this sum was generally paid under the guise of an apprentice fee but it was known to be and was called a sale for the parents real or nominal never interfered with the master subsequently but left the infant to its fate 2, I find the following account of the means resorted to in order to induce or more frequently compel these wretched infants to work the boy in the first instance went for a month or any term agreed upon on trial or to see how he would suit the business during this period of probation he was usually well treated and well fed whatever the character of the master with little to do beyond running errands and observing the mode of work of the experienced climbers when however he was bound as an apprentice he was put with another lad who had been for some time at the business the new boy was sent first up the chimney and immediately followed by the other this was accomplished by the pressure of the knees and the elbows against the sides of the flu by pressing the knees tightly the child managed to raise his arms somewhat higher and then by pressing his elbows in like manner he contrived to draw up his legs and so on the inside of the flu presented a smooth surface and there were no inequalities where the fingers or toes could be inserted when the young beginner fall he was sure to light upon the shoulders of the boy beneath him who always kept himself firmly fixed in expectation of such a mishap and then the novice had to commence anew in this manner the twain reached the top by degrees sweeping down the suit and descended by the same method this practice was very severe especially on new boys whose knees and elbows were torn by the pressure and the slipping down continually the skin being stripped off and frequently breaking out in frightful sores from the constant abrasions and from the suit and dirt getting into them in his evidence before parliament in 1817 for there had been previous inquiries Mr Cook gave an account of the training of these boys and on being asked do the elbows and knees of the boys when they first begin the business become very sore afterwards get callous and are those boys employed in sweeping chimneys during the soreness of those parts answered it depends upon the sort of masters they have got some are obliged to put them to work sooner than others you must keep them a little at it or they will never learn their business even during the sores he stated further that the skin broke generally and that the boys could not ascend chimneys during the sores without very great pen the way that I learn boys is he continued to put some cloths over their elbows and over their knees till they get the nature of the chimney till they get a little use to it we call it padding then and then we take them off and they get very little grazed indeed after they have got the art but very few will take that trouble some boys flesh is far worse than others and it takes more time to harden them he was then asked do those persons still continue to employ them to climb chimneys and the answer was some do, it depends on the character of the master, none of them of that class keep them till they get well none, they are obliged to climb with those sores upon them I never had one of my own apprentices do that this system of padding however was but little practiced but in what proportion it was unless by the respectable masters who were then but few in number the parliamentary papers the only information on the subject now attainable do not state the inference is that the majority out of but 20 of these masters with some 80 or 100 apprentices did treat them well and what was so accounted the customary way of training these boys then was such as I have described some even of the better masters whose boys were in the comparison well lodged and fed and sent to the Sunday school which seems to have comprised all needful education considered padding and such like to be newfangled nonsense I may add also that although the boy carried up a brush with him it was used but occasionally only when there were turns or defects in the chimney the suit being brought down the shoulders and limbs the climber wore a cap to protect his eyes and mouth from the suit and a sort of flannel tunic his feet, legs and arms being bare some of these lads were surprisingly quick one man told me that when in his prime as a climbing boy he could reach the top of a chimney about as quickly as a person could go upstairs to the attics the following is from the evidence of Mr Cook frequently cited as an excellent master what mode do you adopt to get the boy to go up the chimney in the first instance we persuade him as well as we can we generally practice him in one of our own chimneys first one of the boys who knows the trade goes up behind him and when he has practised it perhaps 10 times though some will require 20 times they generally can manage it it goes up with him to keep him from falling after that the boy will manage to go up with himself after going up and down several times with one under him we do this because if he happens to make a slip he will be caught by the other do you find many boys show repugnance to go up at first yes most of them and if they resist and reject in what way do you force them up by telling them we must take them back again to their father and mother and give them up again and their parents are generally people who cannot maintain them so that they are afraid of going back to their parents for fear of being starved yes they go through a deal of hardship before they come to our trade did you use any more violent means sometimes a rod did you ever hear of straw being lighted under them never you never heard of any means being made use of except being beat and being sent home no no other you are aware of course that those means being gentle or harsh must depend very much upon the character of the individual master it does of course you must know that there are persons of harsh and cruel disposition have you not often heard of masters treating their apprentices with great cruelty particularly the little boys in forcing them to go up those small flows which the boys were unwilling to ascend yes I have forced up many a one myself by what means by threatening and by giving them a kick or a slap it was also stated that the journeyman used the boys with greater cruelty than did the masters indeed a delegated tyranny is often the worst for very little faults they kicked and slapped the children and sometimes flogged them with a cat made of rope hard at each end and as thick as your thumb Mr. John Fisher a master chimney sweeper said many masters are very severe with their children to make them go up the chimneys I have seen them make them strip themselves naked I have been obliged myself to go up a chimney naked this respects the cruelties of driving boys up chimneys by kindling straw beneath their feet or thrusting pins into the soles of their feet I find the following statements given on the authority of BM Forster Esquire a private gentleman residing in Walthamstow a lad was ordered to sweep a chimney at Wandsworth he came down after endeavouring to ascend and this occurred several times before he gave up the point at last the journeyman took some straw or hay and lighted it under him to drive him up when he endeavoured to get up the last time he found there was a bar across the chimney which he could not pass he was obliged in consequence to come down and the journeyman beat him so cruelly to use his own expression that he could not stand for a fortnight in the whole city of Norwich I could find only nine climbing boys two of whom I questioned on many particulars one was with respect to the manner in which they are taught to climb they both agreed in that particular that a larger boy was sent up behind them to prick their feet if they did not climb properly I purposely avoided mentioning about pricking them with pins but asked them how they did it they said that they thrust the pins into the soles of their feet a third instance occurred at Walthamstow a man told me that some he knew had been taught in the same way I believe it to be common but I cannot state any more instances from authority three, on the subject of the sores, bruises wounds, burns and diseases to which chimney sweepers in their apprenticeships were not only exposed but as it were condemned Mr R Wright a surgeon on being examined before the committee said I shall begin with deformity I am well persuaded that the deformity of the spine legs, arms and so on of chimney sweepers generally if not wholly proceeds from the circumstance of their being obliged not only to go up chimneys at an age when their bones are in a soft and growing state but likewise from their being compelled by their two merciless masters and mistresses to carry bags of soot and those very frequently for a great length of distance and time by far too heavy for their tender years and limbs the knees and ankle joints mostly become deformed in the first instance from the position they are obliged to put them in in order to support themselves not only while climbing up the chimney but more particularly so in that of coming down when they rest solely on the lower extremities sore eyes and eyelids are the next to be considered chimney sweepers are very subject to inflammation of the eyelids and not unfrequently weakness of sight in consequence of such inflammation this I attribute to the circumstance of the soot lodging on the eyelids which first produces irritability of the part and the constantly rubbing them with their dirty hands instead of alleviating increases the disease for I have observed in a number of cases when the patient has ceased for a time to follow the business and of course the original cause has been removed that with washing and keeping clean they were soon got well sores for the same reasons are generally a long time in healing cancer is another and a most formidable disease which chimney sweepers in particular are liable to especially that of the scrotum from which circumstance by way of distinction it is called the chimney sweepers cancer of this sort of cancer I have seen several instances some of which have been operated on but in general they are apt to let them go too far before they apply for relief cancers of the lips are not so general as cancers of the scrotum I never saw but two instances of the former and several of the latter the chimney sweepers cancer was always lectured upon as a separate disease at guys and Bartholomew's hospitals and on the question being put to Mr Wright do the physicians who are entrusted with the care and management of those hospitals think that disease of such common occurrence that it is necessary to make it a practical education he replied most assuredly I remember Mr Klein and Mr Cooper were particular on that subject and having one or two cases of the kind in the hospital it struck my mind very forcibly with the permission of the committee I will relate a case that occurred lately which I had from one of the pupils at St Thomas's hospital he informed me that they recently had a case of a chimney sweepers cancer which was to have been operated on that week but the man brushed to use their expression or rather walked off he would not submit to the operation similar instances of which I have known myself they dread so much the knife in consequence of foolish persons telling them it is so formidable an operation and that they will die under it I conceive without the operation it is death for cancers are of that nature that unless you extricate them entirely they will never be cured of the chimney sweepers cancer the following statement is given in the report Mr Klein informed your committee by letter that this disease is rarely seen in any other persons than chimney sweepers and in them cannot be considered as frequent for during his practice in St Thomas's hospital 40 years the number of those could not exceed 20 but your committee have been informed that the dread of the operation which it is necessary to perform deters many from submitting to it and from the evidence of persons engaged in the trade it appears to be much more common than Mr Klein seems to be aware of cough and asthma chimney sweepers are from their being out at all hours and in all weathers very liable to cough and inflammation of the chest burns they are very subject to burns from their being forced up chimneys while on fire or soon after they have been on fire and while overheated and however they may cry out their inhuman masters pay not the least attention but compel them to often with horrid implications to proceed stunted growth in this unfortunate race of the community is attributed in a great measure to their being brought into the business at a very early age to accidents they were frequently liable in the pursuit of their callings and sometimes these accidents were the being jammed or fixed or as it was called in the trade stuck in narrow and heated flows sometimes for hours and until death among these hapless lads were indeed deaths from accidents cruelty, privation and exhaustion but it does not appear that the number was ever ascertained there were also many narrow escapes from dreadful deaths I give instances of each quote On Monday morning the 29th of March 1813 a chimney sweeper of the name of Greeks attended to sweep a small chimney in the brew house of Mrs. Calvert in Upper Thames Street he was accompanied by one of his boys a lad of about eight years of age of the name of Thomas Pitt the fire had been lighted as early as two o'clock the same morning and was burning on the arrival of Greeks and his little boy at eight the fireplace was small and an iron pipe projected from the great some little distance into the flu this the master was acquainted with having swept the chimneys in the brew house and therefore had a tile or two taken from the roof in order that the boy might descend the chimney he had no sooner extinguished the fire than he suffered the lad to go down and the consequence as might be expected was his almost immediate death in a state no doubt of inexpressible agony the flu was of the narrowest description and must have retained heat sufficient to have prevented the child's return to the top even supposing he had not approached the pipe belonging to the great which must have been nearly red hot this however was not clearly ascertained on the inquest though the appearance of the body would induce an opinion that he had been unavoidably pressed against the pipe soon after his descent the master who remained on the top was apprehensive that something had happened and therefore desired him to come up the answer of the boy was I cannot come up master I must die here an alarm was given in the brew house immediately that he had stuck in the chimney and a bricklayer who was at work near the spot attended and after knocking down part of the brickwork of the chimney just above the fireplace made a hole sufficiently large to draw him through a surgeon attended but all attempts to restore life were ineffectual on inspecting the body various burns appeared the fleshy part of the legs and a great part of the feet more particularly were injured those parts too by which climbing boys most effectually ascend or descend chimneys namely the elbows and knees seemed burnt to the bone from which it must be evident that the unhappy surferer made some attempts to return as soon as the horrors of his situation became apparent in the improvement made some years since by the bank of England in Lothbury the chimney belonging to Mr Mildrum a baker was taken down but before he began to bake in order to see that the rest of the flu was clear a boy was sent up and after remaining some time and not answering to the call of his master another boy was ordered to descend from the top of the flu and to meet him half way but this being found impracticable they opened the brickwork in the lower part of the flu and found the first mentioned boy dead in the meantime the boy in the upper part of the flu called out for relief saying he was completely jammed in the rubbish and was unable to extricate himself upon this a bricklayer was employed with the utmost expedition but he succeeded only in obtaining a lifeless body the bodies were sent to St Margaret's church Lothbury and a coroner's inquest which sat upon them returned the verdict accidental death in the beginning of the year 1808 a chimney sweeper's boy being employed to sweep a chimney in Marsh Street Walthamstow in the house of Mr Jeffrey Carpenter unfortunately in his attempt to get down stuck in the flu and was unable to extricate himself Mr Jeffrey being within hearing of the boy immediately procured assistance as the chimney was low and the top of it easily accessible from without the boy was taken out in about 10 minutes the chimney pot and several rows of bricks having been previously removed if he had remained in that dreadful situation many minutes longer he must have died his master was sent for and he arrived soon after the boy had been released he abused him for the accident and after striking him sent him with a bag of soot to sweep another chimney the child appeared so very weak when taken out that he could scarcely stand and yet this wretched being up ever since 3 o'clock had before been sent by his master to Wanstod which with his walk to Marsh Street made about 5 miles in May 1817 a boy employed in sweeping a chimney in Sheffield got wedged fast in one of the flues and remained in that situation near 2 hours before he could be extricated which was at length accomplished by pulling down part of the chimney on one occasion a child remained above 2 hours in some danger in a chimney rather than venture down and encounter his master's anger the man was held to bail which he could not procure as in the cases I have described at Message Calvert's and in Lothbury the verdict was usually accidental death or something equivalent it was otherwise however where willful cruelty was proven the following case was a subject of frequent comment at the time On Friday 31st of May 1816 William Moles and Sarah his wife were tried at the Old Bailey for the willful murder of John Hewley Aelius Hastley a boy about 6 years of age in the month of April last by cruelly beating him under the direction of the learned judge they were acquitted of the crime of murder but the husband was detained to take his trial as for a misdemeanor of which he was convicted upon the fullest evidence and sentenced to 2 years imprisonment the facts as proved in this case are too shocking in detail to relate the substance of them is that he was forced up the chimney on the shoulder of a bigger boy and afterwards violently pulled down again by the leg and dashed upon a marble hearth his leg was thus broken and death ensued in a few hours and on his body and knees were found scars arising from wounds of a much older date this long continued system of cruelties of violations of public and private duties bore and ripened its natural fruits the climbing boys grew up to be unhealthy, vicious ignorant and idle men for during their apprenticeships their labour was over early in the day and they often passed away their leisure in gambling in the streets with one another and other children of their stamp as they frequently had half pens given to them they played also at chuck and toss with the journeyman and of course were stripped of every farthing thus they became indolent and fond of excitement when a lad ceased to be an apprentice although he might be but 16 he was too big to climb and even if he got employment as a journeyman his remuneration was wretched only two shillings a week with his board and lodging there were however far fewer complaints of being insufficiently fed than might have been expected but the sleeping places were execrable they sleep in different places sometimes in sheds and sometimes in places which we call barracks large rooms or in the cellar where the suit was kept some never sleep upon anything that can be called a bed some do Alan a master sweep for 22 years gave the committee the following account of the men's earnings and what may be called the general perquisites of the trade under the exploded system if a man be 25 years of age he has no more than two shillings a week he is not clothed only fed and lodged in the same manner as the boys the two shillings a week is not sufficient to find him clothes and other necessaries certainly not it is hardly enough to find him with shoe leather for they walk over a deal of ground in going about the streets the journeyman is able to live upon those wages for he gets half pens given him supposing he is 16 or 20 years of age he gets the boys pens from them and keeps it and if he happens to get a job for which he receives a shilling he gets six pens of that and his master the other six pens the boys pens are what the boys get after they have been doing their master's work they get a penny or so and the journeyman takes it from them and licks them if they do not give it up note these jobs after the master's work had been done were chance jobs as when a journeyman on his round was called on by a stranger and unexpectedly to sweep a chimney sometimes by arrangement of the journeyman and the lad the proceeds never reached the master's pocket sometimes but rarely such jobs were the journeyman's rightful perquisite end note men, proceeds Mr Allen who are 22 and 23 years of age will play with the young boys and win their money that is, they get half the money from them by force and the rest by fraud they are driven to this course from the low wages which the masters give them because they have no other means to get anything for themselves not even the few necessaries which they may want for even what they want to wash with they must get themselves as to what becomes of the money the boys get on May Day when they are in want of clothes the master will buy them as check shirts or handkerchiefs these masters get a share of the money which the boys collect on May Day the boys have about a shilling or one shilling sixpence the journeyman has also his share then the master takes the remainder which is to buy the boys clothes as they say I cannot exactly tell what the average amount is that a boy will get on the May Day the most that my boy ever got was five shillings but I think that the boys get more than that I should think they get as much as nine shillings or ten shillings apiece the Christmas boxes are generally I believe divided among themselves among the boys but I cannot say rightly it is spent on buying silk handkerchiefs or Sunday shoes I believe but I am not perfectly sure of the condition and lot of the operatives who were too big to go up the chimneys Mr. J. Fisher a master sweeper gave the following account they get into a roving way and go about from one master to another and they often come to no good end at last they sometimes go into the country and after staying there sometime they come back again I took a boy of that sort very lately and kept him like my own to school he asked me one Sunday to let him go to school and I was glad to let him go and I gave him leave he accordingly went and I have seen nothing of him since before he went he asked me if I would let him come home to see my child buried I told him to ask his school master but he did not come back again I cannot tell what has become of him he was to have served me for 12 months I did not take him from the parish he came to me he said his parents were dead the effect of the roving habit of the large boys when they become too large to climb is that they get one with another and learn bad habits from one another they never will stop long in any one place they frequently go into the country and get various places perhaps they stop a month at each some try to get masters themselves and some will get into bad company which very often happens then they turn thieves they want work and people do not like to employ them unless they should take anything out of their houses the generality of them never settle in any steady business they generally turn loose characters and people will not employ them unless they should take anything out of the house the criminal annals of the kingdom bear out the foregoing account some of these boys indeed when they attained mans estate became in a great measure a skill in climbing expert and enterprising burglars breaking into places where few men would have cared to venture one of the most daring feats ever attempted and accomplished was the escape from Newgate by a sweeper about 15 years ago he climbed by the aid of his knees and elbows a height of nearly 80 feet though the walls in the corner of the prison yard where this was done were nearly of an even surface his slip could not have failed to have precipitated the sweeper to the bottom he was then under sentence of death for highway robbery his name was Whitehead and he'd done a more wonderful thing nor that remarked an informant who had been his master we was sweeping the bilers in a sugar house and he went from the biler up the flow of the chimney it was nearly as high as the monument to that chimney I should say it was 30 or 40 feet higher nor the sugar house he got out at the top and slid down the bare brickwork on the outside onto the roof of the house got through an attic window in the roof and managed to get off without anyone knowing what became of him that was the most wonderful thing I ever know in my life I don't know how he escaped from being killed but he was always an audacious feller it was nearly three months after a four we found him in the country I don't know where they sent him to after he was brought back to Newgate but I hear they made him a turnkey in a prison somewhere and that he's doing very well now the feet at the sugar house could be only to escape from his apprenticeship in the course of the whole parliamentary evidence the sweepers reared under the old climbing system are spoken off as a short lived race but no statistics could be given some died old men in middle age in the work houses many were mere vagrants at the time of their death I took the statement of a man who had been what he called a climbing in his childhood but as he is now a master sweeper and has indeed gone through all grades of the business I shall give it in my account of the present condition of the sweepers climbing is still occasionally resorted to especially when repairs are required but the climbing boys I was told are now men these are slight dwarfish men whose services are often in considerable request and cannot at all times be commanded as there are only about 20 of them in London so effectively has climbing been suppressed these little men I was told did pretty well not infrequently getting two shillings or two shilling sixpence for a single job as regards the labour question during the existence of the climbing boys we find in the report the following results the nominal wages to the journeymen were two shillings a week with board and lodging the apprentices received no wages their masters being only required to feed lodge and clothe them the actual wages were the same as the nominal with the addition of one shilling as perquisites in money there were other perquisites in liquor or broken meat in the reports are no accounts of the duration of labour throughout the year nor can I obtain from masters sweepers who were in the business during the old mode any sufficient data upon which to found any calculations the employment however seems to have been generally continuous running through the year though in the course of the 12 month one master would have four and another six different journeymen but only one at a time the vagrant propensities of the class is a means of accounting for this the nominal wages of those journeymen who resided in their own apartments were generally 14 shillings a week and their actual about two shilling sixpence extra in the form of perquisites others resided on the premises having the care of the boys with board and lodgings and five shillings a week in money nominally and seven shilling sixpence actually the perquisites being worth two shilling sixpence concerning the general or average wages of the whole trade I can only present the following computation Mr. Tooke in his evidence before the House of Commons stated that the committee of which he was a member had ascertained that one boy on an average swept about four chimneys daily at prices varying from sixpence to one shilling sixpence or a medium return of about ten pence per chimney exclusive of the suit then worth eight pence or nine pence a bushel it appears he said from a datum I have here that those chimneysweepers who keep six boys the greatest number allowed by law gain on an average nearly two hundred and seventy pence five boys two hundred and twenty five pence four boys one hundred and eighty pence three boys one hundred and thirty five pence two boys ninety pence and one boy forty five pence yearly exclusive of the suit which is I should suppose upon an average from half a bushel to a bushel every time the chimney is swept out of the prophets you mentioned he was then asked the master has to maintain the boys yes was the answer and when the expenses of house and cellar rent and the wages of journeymen and the maintenance of apprentices are taken into account the number of master chimneysweepers is not only more than the trade will support but exceeds by above one third what the public exigency requires the committee also ascertained that the two hundred master chimney sweepers in the metropolis were supposed to have in their employment one hundred and fifty journeymen and five hundred boys the matter may be reduced to a tabular form expressing the amount in money for it is not asserted that the masters generally gained on the charge for their journeymen's as follows expenditure of master chimney sweepers under the climbing boy system 20 journeymen at individual wages 14 shillings each weekly 780 pounds yearly 30 ditto say 12 shillings weekly 936 pounds yearly 100 ditto 10 shillings weekly 2600 pounds yearly board lodging and clothing of 500 boys 4 shillings sixpence weekly 5850 pounds yearly rent 20 large traders 10 shillings 520 pounds yearly rent 30 others 7 shillings 546 pounds yearly rent 150 others 3 shillings sixpence 1365 pounds yearly 20 horses keep 10 shillings 520 pounds yearly general wear and tear 200 pounds yearly total yearly amount 13317 pounds it appears that about 180 of the master chimney sweepers were themselves working men in the same way as their journeymen the following then may be taken as the yearly receipts of the master sweepers under the climbing boy system payment for sweeping 624000 chimneys 4 daily according to evidence before parliament by each of 500 boys 10 pence per chimney or yearly 26000 pounds suit according to same account say 5 pence per chimney 13000 pounds yearly total 39000 pounds yearly yearly expenditure 13317 pounds yearly profit 25683 pounds this yielded then according to the information submitted to the house of commons select committee as the profits of the trade prior to 1817 an individual yearly gain to each master sweeper of 128 pounds but taking mr. took average yearly profit for the six classes of tradesmen 270 pounds 135 pounds 180 pounds 135 pounds 90 pounds and 45 pounds respectively the individual profit averages above 157 pounds the capital I am informed would not average above 2 guineas per master sweeper nothing being wanted beyond a few common sacks made by the sweeper's wives and a few brushes only about 20 had horses were occasionally hired at a busy time in the foregoing estimates I have not included any sums for apprentice fees as I believe there would be something like a balance in the matter the masters sometimes paying parents such premiums for the use of their children as they received from the parishes for the tuition and maintenance of others of the morals education religion marriage and so on of sweepers under the two systems in another place it may be somewhat curious to conclude with a word of the extent of chimneys swept by a climbing boy one respectable master sweeper told me that for 11 years he had climbed five or six days weekly during this period he thought he had swept 15 chimneys as a week's average each chimney being at least 40 feet in height so traversing in ascending and descending 6,400 feet or 130 miles of a world of suit this however is little to what has been done by a climber of 30 years standing one of the little men of whom I have spoken my informant entertained no doubt that this man had for the first 22 years of his career climbed half as much again as he himself had or had traversed 2,059,200 feet of the interior of chimneys or 390 miles since the new act this man had of course climbed less but had still been a good deal employed so that adding his progresses for the last 9 years to the 22 proceeding he must have swept about 456 miles of chimney interiors End of section 65