On Sundays the fare was better. They then sometimes had a bit of “prime fat mutton” taken to the oven, with “taturs to bake along with it;” or a “fry of liver, if the old ’oman was in a good humour,” and always a pint of beer apiece. Hence, as some give their men beer, the average amount of 5s. or 6s. weekly, which I have given as the cost of the “board” to the masters, is made up. The drunken single-handed master-men, I am told, live on beer and “a bite of anything they can get.” I believe there are few complaints of inefficient food.

The food provided by the large or high master sweepers is generally of the same kind as the master and his family partake of; among this class the journeymen are tolerably well provided for.

In the lower-class sweepers, however, the food is not so plentiful nor so good in kind as that provided by the high master sweepers. The expense of keeping a man employed by a large master sometimes ranges as high as 8s. a week, but the average, I am told, is about 6s. per week; while those employed by the low-class sweepers average about 5s. a week. The cost of their lodging may be taken at from 1s. to 2s. a week extra.

The sweepers in general are, I am assured, fond of oleaginous food; fat broth, fagots, and what is often called “greasy” meat.

They are considered a short-lived people, and among the journeymen, the masters “on their own hook,” &c., few old men are to be met with. In one of the reports of the Board of Health, out of 4312 deaths among males, of the age of 15 and upwards, the mortality among the sweepers, masters and men, was 9, or one in 109 of the whole trade. As the calculation was formed, however, from data supplied by the census of 1841, and on the Post Office Directory, it supplies no reliable information, as I shall show when I come to treat of the nightmen. Many of these men still suffer, I am told, from the chimney-sweeper’s cancer, which is said to arise mainly from uncleanly habits. Some sweepers assure me that they have vomited balls of soot.

As to the abodes of the master sweepers, I can supply the following account of two. The soot, I should observe, is seldom kept long, rarely a month, on the premises of a sweeper, and is in the best “concerns” kept in cellars.

The localities in which many of the sweepers reside are the “lowest” places in the district. Many of the houses in which I found the lower class of sweepers were in a ruinous and filthy condition. The “high-class” sweepers, on the other hand, live in respectable localities, often having back premises sufficiently large to stow away their soot.

I had occasion to visit the house of one of the persons from whom I obtained much information. He is a master in a small way, a sensible man, and was one of the few who are teetotallers. His habitation, though small—being a low house only one story high—was substantially furnished with massive mahogany chairs, table, chests of drawers, &c., while on each side of the fire-place, which was distinctly visible from the street over a hall door, were two buffets, with glass doors, well filled with glass and china vessels. It was a wet night, and a fire burned brightly in the stove, by the light of which might be seen the master of the establishment sitting on one side, while his wife and daughter occupied the other; a neighbour sat before the fire with his back to the door, and altogether it struck me as a comfortable-looking evening party. They were resting and chatting quietly together after the labour of the day, and everything betokened the comfortable circumstances in which the man, by sobriety and industry, had been able to place himself. Yet this man had been a climbing-boy, and one of the unfortunates who had lost his parents when a child, and was apprenticed by the parish to this business. From him I learned that his was not a solitary instance of teetotalism (I have before spoken of another); that, in fact, there were some more, and one in particular, named Brown, who was a good speaker, and devoted himself during his leisure hours at night in advocating the principles which by experience he had found to effect such great good to himself; but he also informed me that the majority of the others were a drunken and dissipated crew, sunk to the lowest degree of misery, yet recklessly spending every farthing they could earn in the public-house.

Different in every respect was another house which I visited in the course of my inquiries, in the neighbourhood of H——-street, Bethnal-green. The house was rented by a sweeper, a master on his own account, and every room in the place was let to sweepers and their wives or women, which, with these men, often signify one and the same thing. The inside of the house looked as dark as a coal-pit; there was an insufferable smell of soot, always offensive to those unaccustomed to it; and every person and every thing which met the eye, even to the caps and gowns of the women, seemed as if they had just been steeped in Indian ink. In one room was a sweep and his woman quarrelling. As I opened the door I caught the words, “I’m d——d if I has it any longer. I’d see you b——y well d——d first, and you knows it.” The savage was intoxicated, for his red eyes flashed through his sooty mask with drunken excitement, and his matted hair, which looked as if it had never known a comb, stood out from his head like the whalebone ribs of his own machine. “B——y Bet,” as he called her, did not seem a whit more sober than her man; and the shrill treble of her voice was distinctly audible till I turned the corner of the street, whither I was accompanied by the master of the house, to whom I had been recommended by one of the fraternity as an intelligent man, and one who knew “a thing or two.” “You see,” he said, as we turned the corner, “there isn’t no use a talkin’ to them ere fellows—they’re all tosticated now, and they doesn’t care nothink for nobody; but they’ll be quiet enough to-morrow, ’cept they yarns somethink, and if they do then they’ll be just as bad to-morrow night. They’re a awful lot, and nobody ill niver do anythink with them.” This man was not by any means in such easy circumstances as the master first mentioned. He was merely a man working for himself, and unable to employ any one else in the business; as is customary with some of these people, he had taken the house he had shown me to let to lodgers of his own class, making something by so doing; though, if his own account be correct, I’m at a loss to imagine how he contrived even to get his rent. From him I obtained the following statement:—

“Yes, I was a climbing-boy, and sarved a rigler printiceship for seven years. I was out on my printiceship when I was fourteen. Father was a silk-weaver, and did all he knew to keep me from being a sweep, but I would be a sweep, and nothink else.” [This is not so very uncommon a predilection, strange as it may seem.] “So father, when he saw it was no use, got me bound printice. Father’s alive now, and near 90 years of age. I don’t know why I wished to be a sweep, ’cept it was this—there was sweeps always lived about here, and I used to see the boys with lots of money a tossin’ and gamblin’, and wished to have money too. You see they got money where they swept the chimneys; they used to get 2d. or 3d. for theirselves in a day, and sometimes 6d. from the people of the house, and that’s the way they always had plenty of money. I niver thought anythink of the climbing; it wasn’t so bad at all as some people would make you believe. There are two or three ways of climbing. In wide flues you climb with your elbows and your legs spread out, your feet pressing against the sides of the flue; but in narrow flues, such as nine-inch ones, you must slant it; you must have your sides in the angles, it’s wider there, and go up just that way.” [Here he threw himself into position—placing one arm close to his side, with the palm of the hand turned outwards, as if pressing the side of the flue, and extending the other arm high above his head, the hand apparently pressing in the same manner.] “There,” he continued, “that’s slantin’. You just put yourself in that way, and see how small you make yourself. I niver got to say stuck myself, but a many of them did; yes, and were taken out dead. They were smothered for want of air, and the fright, and a stayin’ so long in the flue; you see the waistband of their trowsers sometimes got turned down in the climbing, and in narrow flues, when not able to get it up, then they stuck. I had a boy once—we were called to sweep a chimney down at Poplar. When we went in he looked up the flues, ‘Well, what is it like?’ I said. ‘Very narrow,’ says he, ‘don’t think I can get up there;’ so after some time we gets on top of the house, and takes off the chimney-pot, and has a look down—it was wider a’ top, and I thought as how he could go down. ‘You had better buff it, Jim,’ says I. I suppose you know what that means; but Jim wouldn’t do it, and kept his trowsers on. So down he goes, and gets on very well till he comes to the shoulder of the flue, and then he couldn’t stir. He shouts down, ‘I’m stuck.’ I shouts up and tells him what to do. ‘Can’t move,’ says he, ‘I’m stuck hard and fast.’ Well, the people of the house got fretted like, but I says to them, ‘Now my boy’s stuck, but for Heaven’s sake don’t make a word of noise; don’t say a word, good or bad, and I’ll see what I can do.’ So I locks the door, and buffs it, and forces myself up till I could reach him with my hand, and as soon as he got his foot on my hand he begins to prize himself up, and gets loosened, and comes out at the top again. I was stuck myself, but I was stronger nor he, and I manages to get out again. Now I’ll be bound to say if there was another master there as would kick up a row and a-worrited, that ere boy ’ud a niver come out o’ that ere flue alive. There was a many o’ them lost their lives in that way. Most all the printices used to come from the ‘House’ (workhouse.) There was nobody to care for them, and some masters used them very bad. I was out of my time at fourteen, and began to get too stout to go up the flues; so after knockin’ about for a year or so, as I could do nothink else, I goes to sea on board a man-o’-war, and was away four year. Many of the boys, when they got too big and useless, used to go to sea in them days—they couldn’t do nothink else. Yes, many of them went for sodgers; and I know some who went for Gipsies, and others who went for play-actors, and a many who got on to be swell-mobsmen, and thieves, and housebreakers, and the like o’ that ere. There ain’t nothink o’ that sort a-goin’ on now since the Ack of Parliament. When I got back from sea father asked me to larn his business; so I takes to the silk-weaving and larned it, and then married a weaveress, and worked with father for a long time. Father was very well off—well off and comfortable for a poor man—but trade was good then. But it got bad afterwards, and none on us was able to live at it; so I takes to the chimney-sweeping again. A man might manage to live somehow at the sweeping, but the weaving was o’ no use. It was the furrin silks as beat us all up, that’s the whole truth. Yet they tells us as how they was a-doin’ the country good; but they may tell that to the marines—the sailors won’t believe it—not a word on it. I’ve stuck to the sweeping ever since, and sometimes done very fair at it; but since the Ack there’s so many leeks come to it that I don’t know how they live—they must be eatin’ one another up.

“Well, since you ask then, I can tell you that our people don’t care much about law; they don’t understand anythink about politics much; they don’t mind things o’ that ere kind. They only minds to get drunk when they can. Some on them fellows as you seed in there niver cleans theirselves from one year’s end to the other. They’ll kick up a row soon enough, with Chartists or anybody else. I thinks them Chartists are a weak-minded set; they was too much a frightened at nothink,—a hundred o’ them would run away from one blue-coat, and that wasn’t like men. I was often at Chartist meetings, and if they’d only do all they said there was a plenty to stick to them, for there’s a somethink wants to be done very bad, for everythink is a-gettin’ worser and worser every day. I used to do a good trade, but now I don’t yarn a shilling a day all through the year (?). I may walk at this time three or four miles and not get a chimney to sweep, and then get only a sixpence or threepence, and sometimes nothink. It’s a starvin’, that’s what it is; there’s so much ‘querying’ a-goin’ on. Querying? that’s what we calls under-working[61]. If they’d all fix a riglar price we might do very well still. I’m 50 years of age, or thereabouts. I don’t know much about the story of Mrs. Montague; it was afore my time. I heard of it though. I heard my mother talk about it; she used to read it out of books; she was a great reader—none on ’em could stand afore her for that. I was often at the dinner—the masters’ dinner—that was for the boys; but that’s all done away long ago, since the Ack of Parliament. I can’t tell how many there was at it, but there’s such a lot it’s impossible to tell. How could any one tell all the sweeps as is in London? I’m sure I can’t, and I’m sure nobody else can.”

Some years back the sweepers’ houses were often indicated by an elaborate sign, highly coloured. A sweeper, accompanied by a “chummy” (once a common name for the climbing-boy, being a corruption of chimney), was depicted on his way to a red brick house, from the chimneys of which bright yellow flames were streaming. Below was the detail of the things undertaken by the sweep, such as the extinction of fires in chimneys, the cleaning of smoke-jacks, &c., &c. A few of these signs, greatly faded, may be seen still. A sweeper, who is settled in what is accounted a “genteel neighbourhood,” has now another way of making his calling known. He leaves a card whenever he hears of a new comer, a tape being attached, so that it can be hung up in the kitchen, and thus the servants are always in possession of his address. The following is a customary style:—

“Chimneys swept by the improved machine, much patronized by the Humane Society.

“W. H., Chimney Sweeper and Nightman, 1, —— Mews, in returning thanks to the inhabitants of the surrounding neighbourhood for the patronage he has hitherto received, begs to inform them that he sweeps all kinds of chimneys and flues in the best manner.

“W. H., attending to the business himself, cleans smoke-jacks, cures smoky coppers, and extinguishes chimneys when on fire, with the greatest care and safety; and, by giving the strictest personal attendance to business, performs what he undertakes with cleanliness and punctuality, whereby he hopes to ensure a continuance of their favours and recommendations.

“Clean cloths for upper apartments. Soot-doors to any size fixed. Observe the address, 1, —— Mews, near ——.”

At the top of this card is an engraving of the machine; at the foot a rude sketch of a nightman’s cart, with men at work. All the cards I saw reiterated the address, so that no mistake might lead the customer to a rival tradesman.

As to their politics, the sweepers are somewhat similar to the dustmen and costermongers. A fixed hatred to all constituted authority, which they appear to regard as the police and the “beaks,” seems to be the sum total of their principles. Indeed, it almost assumes the character of a fixed law, that persons and classes of persons who are themselves disorderly, and to a certain extent lawless, always manifest the most supreme contempt for the conservators of law and order in every degree. The police are therefore hated heartily, magistrates are feared and abominated, and Queen, Lords, and Commons, and every one in authority, if known anything about, are considered as natural enemies. A costermonger who happened to be present while I was making inquiries on this subject, broke in with this remark, “The costers is the chaps—the government can’t do nothink with them—they allus licks the government.” The sweepers have a sovereign contempt for all Acts of Parliament, because the only Act that had any reference to themselves “threw open,” as they call it, their business to all who were needy enough and who had the capability of availing themselves of it. Like the “dusties” they are, I am informed, in their proper element in times of riot and confusion; but, unlike them, they are, to a man, Chartists, understanding it too, and approving of it, not because it would be calculated to establish a new order of things, but in the hope that, in the transition from one system to the other, there might be plenty of noise and riot, and in the vague idea that in some indefinable manner good must necessarily accrue to themselves from any change that might take place. This I believe to be in perfect keeping with the sentiments of similar classes of people in every country in the world.

The journeymen lay by no money when in work, as a fund to keep them when incapacitated by sickness, accident, or old age. There are, however, a few exceptions to the general improvidence of the class; some few belong to sick and benefit societies, others are members of burial clubs. Where, however, this is not the case, and a sweeper becomes unable, through illness, to continue his work, the mode usually adopted is to make a raffle for the benefit of the sufferer; the same means are resorted to at the death of a member of the trade. When a chimney-sweeper becomes infirm through age, he has mostly, if not invariably, no refuge but the workhouse.

The chimney-sweepers generally are regardless of the marriage ceremony, and when they do live with a woman it is in a state of concubinage. These women are always among the lowest of the street-girls—such as lucifer-match and orange girls, some of the very poorest of the coster girls, and girls brought up among the sweepers. They are treated badly by them, and often enough left without any remorse. The women are equally as careless in these matters as the men, and exchange one paramour for another with the same levity, so that there is a promiscuous intercourse continually going on among them. I am informed that, among the worst class of sweepers living with women, not one in 50 is married. To these couples very few children are born; but I am not able to state the proportion as compared with other classes.

There are some curious customs among the London sweepers which deserve notice. Their May-day festival is among the best known. The most intelligent of the masters tell me that they have taken this “from the milkmen’s garland” (of which an engraving has been given). Formerly, say they, on the first of May the milkmen of London went through the streets, performing a sort of dance, for which they received gratuities from their customers. The music to which they danced was simply brass plates mounted on poles, from the circumference of which plates depended numerous bells of different tones, according to size; these poles were adorned with leaves and flowers, indicative of the season, and may have been a relic of one of the ancient pageants or mummeries.

The sweepers, however, by adapting themselves more to the rude taste of the people, appear to have completely supplanted the milkmen, who are now never seen in pageantry. In Strutt’s “Sports and Pastimes of the People of England,” I find the following with reference to the milk-people:—

“It is at this time,” that is in May, says the author of one of the papers in the Spectator, “we see brisk young wenches in the country parishes dancing round the Maypole. It is likewise on the first day of this month that we see the ruddy milkmaid exerting herself in a most sprightly manner under a pyramid of silver tankards, and, like the Virgin Tarpeia, oppressed by the costly ornaments which her benefactors lay upon her. These decorations of silver cups, tankards, and salvers, were borrowed for the purpose, and hung round the milk-pails, with the addition of flowers and ribands, which the maidens carried upon their heads when they went to the houses of their customers, and danced in order to obtain a small gratuity from each of them. In a set of prints, called ‘Tempest’s Cries of London,’ there is one called the ‘Merry Milkmaid,’ whose proper name was Kate Smith. She is dancing with the milk-pail, decorated as above mentioned, upon her head. Of late years the plate, with the other decorations, were placed in a pyramidical form, and carried by two chairmen upon a wooden horse. The maidens walked before it, and performed the dance without any incumbrance. I really cannot discover what analogy the silver tankards and salvers can have to the business of the milkmaids. I have seen them act with much more propriety upon this occasion, when, in place of these superfluous ornaments, they substituted a cow. The animal had her horns gilt, and was nearly covered with ribands of various colours formed into bows and roses, and interspersed with green oaken leaves and bunches of flowers.”

With reference to the May-day festival of the sweepers the same author says:—“The chimney-sweepers of London have also singled out the first of May for their festival, at which time they parade the streets in companies, disguised in various manners. Their dresses are usually decorated with gilt paper and other mock fineries; they have their shovels and brushes in their hands, which they rattle one upon the other; and to this rough music they jump about in imitation of dancing. Some of the larger companies have a fiddler with them, and a Jack in the Green, as well as a Lord and Lady of the May, who follow the minstrel with great stateliness, and dance as occasion requires. The Jack in the Green is a piece of pageantry consisting of a hollow frame of wood or wicker-work, made in the form of a sugar-loaf, but open at the bottom, and sufficiently large and high to receive a man. The frame is covered with green leaves and bunches of flowers, interwoven with each other, so that the man within may be completely concealed, who dances with his companions; and the populace are mightily pleased with the oddity of the moving pyramid.”

Since the date of the above, the sweepers have greatly improved on their pageant, substituting for the fiddle the more noisy and appropriate music of the street-showman’s drum and pipes, and adding to their party several diminutive imps, no doubt as representatives of the climbing-boys, clothed in caps, jackets, and trowsers, thickly covered with party-coloured shreds. These still make a show of rattling their shovels and brushes, but the clatter is unheard alongside the thunders of the drum. In this manner they go through the various streets for three days, obtaining money at various places, and on the third night hold a feast at one of their favourite public-houses, where all the sooty tribes resort, and, in company with their wives or girls, keep up their festivity till the next morning. I find that this festival is beginning to disappear in many parts of London, but it still holds its ground, and is as highly enjoyed as ever, in all the eastern localities of the metropolis.

It is but seldom that any of the large masters go out on May-day; this custom is generally confined to the little masters and their men. The time usually spent on these occasions is four days, during which as much as from 2l. to 4l. a day is collected; the sums obtained on the three first days are divided according to the several kinds of work performed. But the proceeds of the fourth day are devoted to a supper. The average gains of the several performers on these occasions are as follows:—

The share accruing to the boys is often spent in purchasing some article of clothing for them, but the money got by the other individuals is mostly spent in drink.

The sweepers, however, not only go out on May-day, but likewise on the 5th of November. On the last Guy-Fawkes day, I am informed, some of them received not only pence from the public, but silver and gold. “It was quite a harvest,” they say. One of this class, who got up a gigantic Guy Fawkes and figure of the Pope on the 5th of November, 1850, cleared, I am informed, 10l. over and above all expenses.

For many years, also, the sweepers were in the habit of partaking of a public dinner on the 1st of May, provided for every climbing-boy who thought proper to attend, at the expense of the Hon. Mrs. Montagu. The romantic origin of this custom, from all I could learn on the subject, is this:—The lady referred to, at the time a widow, lost her son, then a boy of tender years. Inquiries were set on foot, and all London heard of the mysterious disappearance of the child, but no clue could be found to trace him out. It was supposed that he was kidnapped, and the search at length was given up in despair. A long time afterwards a sweeper was employed to cleanse the chimneys of Mrs. Montagu’s house, by Portman-square, and for this purpose, as was usual at the time, sent a climbing-boy up the chimney, who from that moment was lost to him. The child did not return the way he went up, but it is supposed that in his descent he got into a wrong flue, and found himself, on getting out of the chimney, in one of the bedrooms. Wearied with his labour, it is said that he mechanically crept between the sheets, all black and sooty as he was. In this state he was found fast asleep by the housekeeper. The delicacy of his features and the soft tones of his voice interested the woman. She acquainted the family with the strange circumstance, and, when introduced to them with a clean face, his voice and appearance reminded them of their lost child. It may have been that the hardships he endured at so early an age had impaired his memory, for he could give no account of himself; but it was evident, from his manners and from the ease which he exhibited, that he was no stranger to such places, and at length, it is said, the Hon. Mrs. Montagu recognised in him her long-lost son. The identity, it was understood, was proved beyond doubt. He was restored to his rank in society, and in order the better to commemorate this singular restoration, and the fact of his having been a climbing-boy, his mother annually provided an entertainment on the 1st of May, at White Conduit House, for all the climbing-boys of London who thought proper to partake of it. This annual feast was kept up during the lifetime of the lady, and, as might be expected, was numerously attended, for since there were no question asked and no document required to prove any of the guests to be climbing-boys, very many of the precocious urchins of the metropolis used to blacken their faces for this special occasion. This annual feast continued, as I have said, as long as the lady lived. Her son continued it only for three or four years afterwards, and then, I am told, left the country, and paid no further attention to the matter.

Of the story of the young Montagu, Charles Lamb has given the following account:—

“In one of the state-beds at Arundel Castle, a few years since—under a ducal canopy (that seat of the Howards is an object of curiosity to visitors, chiefly for its beds, in which the late duke was especially a connoisseur)—encircled with curtains of delicatest crimson, with starry coronets interwoven—folded between a pair of sheets whiter and softer than the lap where Venus lulled Ascanius—was discovered by chance, after all methods of search had failed, at noon-day, fast asleep, a lost chimney-sweeper. The little creature having somehow confounded his passage among the intricacies of those lordly chimneys, by some unknown aperture had alighted upon this magnificent chamber, and, tired with his tedious explorations, was unable to resist the delicious invitement to repose, which he there saw exhibited; so, creeping between the sheets very quietly, he laid his black head on the pillow and slept like a young Howard.”.... “A high instinct,” adds Lamb, “was at work in the case, or I am greatly mistaken. Is it probable that a poor child of that description, with whatever weariness he might be visited, would have ventured under such a penalty as he would be taught to expect, to uncover the sheets of a duke’s bed, and deliberately to lay himself down between them, when the rug or the carpet presented an obvious couch still far above his pretensions?—is this probable, I would ask, if the great power of nature, which I contend for, had not been manifested within him, prompting to the adventure? Doubtless, this young nobleman (for such my mind misgives me he must be) was allured by some memory not amounting to full consciousness of his condition in infancy, when he was used to be lapt by his mother or his nurse in just such sheets as he there found, into which he was now but creeping back as into his proper incubation (incunabula) and resting place. By no other theory than by his sentiment of a pre-existent state (as I may call it) can I explain a deed so venturous.”

There is a strong strain of romance throughout the stories of the lost and found young Montagu. I conversed with some sweepers on the subject. The majority had not so much as heard of the occurrence, but two who had heard of it—both climbing-boys in their childhood—had heard that the little fellow was found in his mother’s house. In a small work, the “Chimney-Sweepers’ Friend,” got up in aid of the Society for the Supersedence of Climbing Boys, by some benevolent Quaker ladies and others (the Quakers having been among the warmest supporters of the suppression of climbers), and “arranged” (the word “edited” not being used) by J. Montgomery, the case of the little Montagu is not mentioned, excepting in two or three vague poetical allusions.

The account given by Lamb (although pronounced apocryphal by some) appears to be the more probable version; and to the minds of many is shown to be conclusively authentic, as I understand that, when Arundel Castle is shown to visitors, the bed in which the child was found is pointed out; nor is it likely that in such a place the story of the ducal bed and the little climbing-boy would be invented.

The following account was given by the wife of a respectable man (now a middle-aged woman) and she had often heard it from her mother, who passed a long life in the neighbourhood of Mrs. Montagu’s residence:—

“Lady M. had a son of tender years, who was supposed to have been stolen for the sake of his clothes. Some time after, there was an occasion when the sweeps were necessary at Montagu House. A servant noticed one of the boys, being at first attracted by his superior manner, and her curiosity being excited fancied a resemblance in him to the lost child. She questioned his master respecting him, who represented that he had found him crying and without a home, and thereupon took him in, and brought him up to his trade. The boy was questioned apart from his master, as to the treatment he received; his answers were favourable; and the consequence was, a compensation was given to the man, and the boy was retained. All doubt was removed as to his identity.”

The annual feast at “White Condick,” so agreeable to the black fraternity, was afterwards continued in another form, and was the origin of a well-known society among the master sweepers, which continued in existence till the abolition of the climbing-boys by Act of Parliament. The masters and the better class of men paid a certain sum yearly, for the purpose of binding the children of the contributors to other trades. In order to increase the funds of this institution, as the dinner to the boys at White Conduit House was an established thing, the masters continued it, and the boys of every master who belonged to the society went in a sort of state to the usual place of entertainment every 1st of May, where they were regaled as formerly. Many persons were in the habit of flocking on this day to White Conduit House to witness the festivities of the sweepers on this occasion, and usually contributed something towards the society. As soon, however, as the Act passed, this also was discontinued, and it is now one of the legends connected with the class.

Sweeping of the Chimneys of Steam-Vessels.

The sweeping of the flues in the boilers of steam-boats, in the Port of London, and also of land boilers in manufactories, is altogether a distinct process, as the machine cannot be used until such time as the parties who are engaged in this business travel a long way through the flues, and reach the lower part of the chimney or funnel where it communicates with the boilers and receives the smoke in its passage to the upper air. The boilers in the large sea-going steamers are of curious construction; in some large steamers there are four separate boilers with three furnaces in each, the flues of each boiler uniting in one beneath the funnel; immediately beyond the end of the furnace, which is marked by a little wall constructed of firebrick to prevent the coals and fire from running off the firebars, there is a large open space very high and wide, and which space after a month’s steaming is generally filled up with soot, somewhat resembling a snow drift collected in a hollow, were it not for its colour and the fact that it is sometimes in a state of ignition; it is, at times, so deep, that a man sinks to his middle in it the moment he steps across the firebridge. Above his head, and immediately over the end of the furnace, he may perceive an opening in what otherwise would appear to be a solid mass of iron; up to this opening, which resembles a doorway, the sweeper must clamber the best way he can, and when he succeeds in this he finds himself in a narrow passage completely dark, but with so strong a current of air rushing through it from the furnaces beneath towards the funnel overhead that it is with difficulty the wick lamp which he carries in his hand can be kept burning. This passage, between the iron walls on either side, is lofty enough for a tall man to stand upright in, but does not seem at first of any great extent; as he goes on, however, to what appears the end, he finds out his mistake, by coming to a sharp turn which conducts him back again towards the open space in the centre of the boiler, but which is now hid from him by the hollow iron walls which on every side surround him, and within which the waters boil and seethe as the living flames issuing from the furnaces rush and roar through these winding passages; another sharp turn leads back to the front of the boilers, and so on for seven or eight turns, backwards and forwards, like the windings in a maze, till at the last turn a light suddenly breaks upon him, and, looking up, he perceives the hollow tube of the funnel, black and ragged with the adhering soot.

Here, then, the labour of the sweeper commences: he is armed with a brush and shovel, and laying down his lamp in a space from which he has previously shovelled away the soot, which in many parts of the passage is knee deep, he brushes down the soot from the sides and roof of the passage, which being done he shovels it before him into the next winding; this process he repeats till he reaches, by degrees, the opening where he ascended. Whenever the accumulation of soot is so great that it is likely to block up the passage in the progress of his work, he wades through and shovels as much as he thinks necessary out of the opening into the large space behind the furnaces, then resumes his work, brushing and shovelling by turns, till the flues are cleared; when this is accomplished, he descends, and the fire bars being previously removed, he shovels the soot, now all collected together, over the firebridge and into the ashpit of the furnace; other persons stand ready in the stoke-hole armed with long iron rakes, with which they drag out the soot from the ashpits; and others shovel it into sacks, which they make fast to tackle secured to the upper deck, by which they “bowse” it up out of the engine-room, and either discharge it overboard or put it into boats preparatory to being taken ashore. In this manner an immense quantity of soot is removed from the boilers of a large foreign-going steamer when she gets into port, after a month or six weeks’ steaming, having burned in that time perhaps 700 or 800 tons of coal: this work is always performed by the stokers and coal-trimmers in the foreign ports, who seldom, if ever, get anything extra for it, although it is no uncommon thing for some of them to be ill for a week after it.

In the port of London, however, the sweeper comes into requisition, who, besides going through the process already described, brings his machine with him, and is thus enabled to cleanse the funnel, and to increase the quantity of soot. Some of the master sweepers, who have the cleansing of the steam-boats in the river, and the sweeping of boiler flues are obliged to employ a good many men, and make a great deal of money by their business. The use of anthracite coals, however, and some modern improvements, by which air at a certain temperature is admitted to certain parts of the furnace, have in many instances greatly lessened, if they have not altogether prevented, the accumulation of soot, by the prevention of smoke; and it seems quite possible, from the statements made by many eminent scientific and practical men who were examined before a select committee of the House of Commons, presided over by Mr. Mackinnon, in 1843, that by having properly-constructed stoves, and a sufficient quantity of pure air properly admitted, not only less fuel might be burned, and produce a greater amount of heat, but soot would cease to accumulate, so that the necessity for sweepers would be no longer felt, and there would be no fear of fires from the ignition of soot in the flues of chimneys; blacks and smoke, moreover, would take their departure together; and with them the celebrated London fog might also, in a great measure, disappear.

The funnels of steamers are generally swept at from 8d. to 1s. 6d. per funnel. The Chelsea steamers are swept by Mr. Allbrook, of Chelsea; the Continental, by Mr. Hawsey, of Rosemary-lane; and the Irish and Scotch steamers, by Mr. Tuff, who resides in the East London district.

Of the “Ramoneur” Company.

The Patent Ramoneur Company demands, perhaps, a special notice. It was formed between four and five years ago, and has now four stations: one in Little Harcourt-street, Bryanstone-square; another in New-road, Sloane-street; a third in Charles-place, Euston-square; and the fourth in William-street, Portland-town.

“This Company has been formed,” the prospectus stated, “for the purpose of cleansing chimneys with the Patent Ramoneur Machine, and introducing various other improvements in the business of chimney sweeping. Chimneys are daily swept with this machine where others have failed.”

The Company charge the usual prices, and all the men employed have been brought up as sweepers. The patent machine is thus described:—

“The Patent Ramoneur Machine consists of four brushes, forming a square head, which, by means of elastic springs, contracts or expands, according to the space it moves in; the rods attached to this head or brush are supplied at intervals with a universal spring-joint, capable of turning even a right angle, and the whole is surmounted with a double revolving ball, having also a universal spring-joint, which leads the brush with certainty into every corner, cleansing its route most perfectly.”

The recommendation held out to the public is, that the patented chimney-machine sweeps cleaner than that in general use, and for the reasons assigned; and that, being constructed with more and better springs, it is capable of “turning even a right angle,” which the common machine often leaves unswept. This was and is commonly said of the difference between the cleansing of the chimney by a climbing-boy and that effected by the present mechanical appliances in general use—the boy was “better round a corner.”

The patent machines now worked in London are fifteen in number, and fifteen men are thus employed. Each man receives as a weekly wage, always in money, 14s., besides a suit of clothes yearly. The suit consists of a jacket, waistcoat, and trousers, of dark-coloured corduroy; also a “frock” or blouse, to wear when at work, and a cap; the whole being worth from 35s. to 40s. This payment is about equivalent to that received weekly by the journeymen in the regular or honourable trade; for although higher in nominal amount as a weekly remuneration, the Ramoneur operatives are not allowed any perquisites whatever. The resident or manager at each station is also a working chimney-sweeper for the Company, and at the same rate as the others, his advantage being that he lives rent-free. At one station which I visited, the resident had two comfortable-looking up-stairs’-rooms (the stations being all in small streets), where he and his wife lived; while the “cellar,” which was indeed but the ground floor, although somewhat lower than the doorstep, was devoted to business purposes, the soot being stored there. It was boarded off into separate compartments, one being at the time quite full of soot. All seemed as clean and orderly as possible. The rent of those two rooms, unfurnished, would not be less than 4s. or 5s. a week, so that the resident’s payment may be put at about 50l. a year. The patent-machine operatives sweep, on an average, the same number of chimneys each, as a master chimney-sweeper’s men in a good way of business in the ordinary trade.

Of the Brisk and Slack Seasons, and the Casual Trade among the Chimney-Sweepers.

As among the rubbish-carters in the unskilled, and the tailors and shoemakers of the skilled trades, the sweepers’ trade also has its slackness and its briskness, and from the same cause—the difference in the seasons. The seasons affecting the sweepers’ trade are, however, the natural seasons of the year, the recurring summer and winter, while the seasons influencing the employment of West-end tailors are the arbitrary seasons of fashion.

The chimney-sweepers’ brisk season is in the winter, and especially at what may be in the respective households the periods of the resumption and discontinuance of sitting-room fires.

The sweepers’ seasons of briskness and slackness, indeed, may be said then to be ruled by the thermometer, for the temperature causes the increase or diminution of the number of fires, and consequently of the production of soot. The thermometrical period for fires appears to be from October to the following April, both inclusive (seven months), for during that season the temperature is below 50°. I have seen it stated, and I believe it is merely a statement of a fact, that at one time, and even now in some houses, it was customary enough for what were called “great families” to have a fixed day (generally Michaelmas-day, Sept. 29) on which to commence fires in the sitting-rooms, and another stated day (often May-day, May 1) on which to discontinue them, no matter what might be the mean temperature, whether too warm for the enjoyment of a fire, or too cold comfortably to dispense with it. Some wealthy persons now, I am told—such as call themselves “economists,” while their servants and dependants apply the epithet “mean”—defer fires until the temperature descends to 42°, or from November to March, both inclusive, a season of only five months.

As this question of the range of the thermometer evidently influences the seasons, and therefore, the casual labour of the sweepers, I will give the following interesting account of the changing temperature of the metropolis, month by month, the information being derived from the observations of 25 years (1805 to 1830), by Mr. Luke Howard. The average temperature appears to be:—

London, I may further state, is 2½ degrees warmer than the country, especially in winter, owing to the shelter of buildings and the multiplicity of the fires in the houses and factories. In the summer the metropolis is about 1¼ degree hotter than the country, owing to want of free air in London, and to a cause little thought about—the reverberations from narrow streets. In spring and autumn, however, the temperature of both town and country is nearly equal.

In London, moreover, the nights are 11·3 degrees colder than the days; in the country they are 15·4 degrees colder. The extreme ranges of the temperature in the day, in the capital, are from 20° to 90°. The thermometer has fallen below zero in the night time, but not frequently.

In London the hottest months are 28 degrees warmer than the coldest; the temperature of July, which is the hottest month, being 63·1; and that of January, the coldest month, 35·1 degrees.

The month in which there are the greatest number of extremes of heat and cold is January. In February and December there are (generally speaking) only two such extreme variations, and five in July; through the other months, however, the extremes are more diffused, and there are only two spring and two autumn months (April and June—September and November), which are not exposed to great differences of temperature.

The mean temperature assumes a rate of increase in the different months, which may be represented by a curve nearly equal and parallel with one representing the progress of the sun in declination.

Hoar-frosts occur when the thermometer is about 39°, and the dense yellow fogs, so peculiar to London, are the most frequent in the months of November, December, and January, whilst the temperature ranges below 40°.

The busy season in the chimney-sweepers’ trade commences at the beginning of November, and continues up to the month of May; during the remainder of the year the trade is “slack.” When the slack season has set in nearly 100 men are thrown out of employment. These, as well as many of the single-handed masters, resort to other kinds of employment. Some turn costermongers, others tinkers, knife-grinders, &c., and others migrate to the country and get a job at haymaking, or any other kind of unskilled labour. Even during the brisk season there are upwards of 50 men out of employment; some of these occasionally contrive to get a machine of their own, and go about “knulling,”—getting a job where they can.

Many of the master sweepers employ in the summer months only two journeymen, whereas they require three in the winter months; but this, I am informed, is not the general average, and that it will be more correct to compute it for the whole trade, in the proportion of two and a half to two. We may, then, calculate that one-fourth of the entire trade is displaced during the slack season.

This, then, may be taken as the extent of casual labour, with all the sufferings it entails upon improvident, and even upon careful working-men.

A youth casually employed as a sweeper gave the following account:—“I jobs for the sweeps sometimes, sir, as I’d job for anybody else, and if you have any herrands to go, and will send me, I’ll be unkimmon thankful. I haven’t no father and don’t remember one, and mother might do well but for the ruin (gin). I calls it ‘ruin’ out of spite. No, I don’t care for it myself. I like beer ten to a farthing to it. She’s a ironer, sir, a stunning good one, but I don’t like to talk about her, for she might yarn a hatful of browns—3s. 6d. a day; and when she has pulled up for a month or more it’s stunning is the difference. I’d rather not be asked more about that. Her great fault against me is as I won’t settle. I was one time put to a woman’s shoemaker as worked for a ware’us. He was a relation, and I was to go prentice if it suited. But I couldn’t stand his confining ways, and I’m sartain sure that he only wanted me for some tin mother said she’d spring if all was square. He was bad off, and we lived bad, but he always pretended he was going to be stunning busy. So I hooked it. I’d other places—a pot-boy’s was one, but no go. None suited.

“Well, I can keep myself now by jobbing, leastways I can partly, for I have a crib in a corner of mother’s room, and my rent’s nothing, and when she’s all right I’m all right, and she gets better as I grows bigger, I think. Well, I don’t know what I’d like to be; something like a lamp-lighter, I think. Well, I look out for sweep jobs among others, and get them sometimes. I don’t know how often. Sometimes three mornings a week for one week; then none for a month. Can any one live by jobbing that way for the sweeps? No, sir, nor get a quarter of a living; but it’s a help. I know some very tidy sweeps now. I’m sure I don’t know what they are in the way of trade. O, yes, now you ask that, I think they’re masters. I’ve had 6d. and half-a-pint of beer for a morning’s work, jobbing like. I carry soot for them, and I’m lent a sort of jacket, or a wrap about me, to keep it off my clothes—though a Jew wouldn’t sometimes look at ’em—and there’s worser people nor sweeps. Sometimes I’ll get only 2d. or 3d. a day for helping that way, a carrying soot. I don’t know nothing about weights or bushels, but I know I’ve found it —— heavy.

“The way, you see, sir, is this here: I meets a sweep as knows me by sight, and he says, ‘Come along, Tom’s not at work, and I want you. I have to go it harder, so you carry the soot to our place to save my time, and join me again at No. 39.’ That’s just the ticket of it. Well, no; I wouldn’t mind being a sweep for myself with my own machine; but I’d rather be a lamp-lighter. How many help sweeps as I do? I can’t at all say. No, I don’t know whether it’s 10, or 20, or 100, or 1000. I’m no scholard, sir, that’s one thing. But it’s very seldom such as me’s wanted by them. I can’t tell what I get for jobbing for sweeps in a year. I can’t guess at it, but it’s not so much, I think, as from other kinds of jobbing. Yes, sir, I haven’t no doubt that the t’others as jobs for sweeps is in the same way as me. I think I may do as much as any of ’em that way, quite as much.”

Of the “Leeks” among the Chimney-Sweepers.

The Leeks are men who have not been brought up to the trade of chimney sweeping, but have adopted it as a speculation, and are so called from their entering green, or inexperienced, into the business. There are I find as many as 200 leeks altogether among the master chimney-sweepers of the metropolis. Of the “high masters” the greater portion are leeks—no less than 92 out of 106. I was informed that one of this class was formerly a solicitor, others had been ladies’ shoemakers, and others master builders and bricklayers. Among the lower-class sweepers who have taken to this trade, there are dustmen, scavagers, bricklayers’ labourers, soldiers, costermongers, tinkers, and various other unskilled labourers.

The leeks are regarded with considerable dislike by the class of masters who have been regularly brought up to the business, and served their apprenticeships as climbing-boys. These look upon the leeks as men who intrude upon, or interfere with, their natural and, as they account it, legal rights—declaring that only such as have been brought up to the business should be allowed to establish themselves in it as masters. The chimney-sweepers, as far as I can learn, have never possessed any guild, or any especial trade regulations, and this opinion of their rights being invaded by the leeks arises most probably from their knowledge that during the climbing-boy system every lad so employed, unless the son of his employer, was obliged to be apprenticed.

This jealousy towards the leeks does not at all affect the operative sweepers, as some of these leeks are good masters, and among them, perhaps, is to be found the majority of the capitalists of the chimney-sweeping trade, paying the best wages, and finding their journeymen proper food and lodging. Into whatever district I travelled I heard the operative chimney-sweepers speak highly in favour of some of the leeks.

Many of the small masters, however, said “it were a shame” for persons who had never known the horrors of climbing to come into the trade and take the bread out of the mouths of those who had undergone the drudgery of the climbing system; and there appears to be some little justice in their remarks.

Since the introduction of machines into the chimney-sweeping trade the masters have increased considerably. In 1816 there were 200 masters, and now there are 350. Before the machines were introduced, the high master sweepers or “great gentlemen,” as they were called, numbered only about 20; their present number is 106. The lower-class and master-men sweepers, on the other hand, were, under the climbing system, from 150 to 180 in number; but at present there are as many as 240 odd. The majority of these fresh hands are “leeks,” not having been bred to the business.

Of the Inferior Chimney-Sweepers—the “Knullers” and “Queriers.”

The majority of occupations in all civilized communities are divisible into two distinct classes, the employers and the employed. The employers are necessarily capitalists to a greater or less extent, providing generally the materials and implements necessary for the work, as well as the subsistence of the workmen, in the form of wages and appropriating the proceeds of the labour, while the employed are those who, for the sake of the present subsistence supplied to them, undertake to do the requisite work for the employer. In some few trades these two functions are found to be united in the same individuals. The class known as peasant proprietors among the cultivators of the soil are at once the labourers and the owners of the land and stock. The cottiers, on the other hand, though renting the land of the proprietor, are, so to speak, peasant farmers, tilling the land for themselves rather than doing so at wages for some capitalist tenant. In handicrafts and manufactures the same combination of functions is found to prevail. In the clothing districts the domestic workers are generally their own masters, and so again in many other branches of production. These trading operatives are known by different names in different trades. In the shoe trade, for instance, they are called “chamber-masters,” in the “cabinet trade” they are termed “garret-masters,” and in “the cooper’s trade” the name for them is “small trading-masters.” Some style them “master-men,” and others, “single-handed masters.” In all occupations, however, the master-men are found to be especially injurious to the interests of the entire body of both capitalists and operatives, for, owing to the limited extent of their resources, they are obliged to find a market for their work, no matter at what the sacrifice, and hence by their excessive competitions they serve to lower the prices of the trade to a most unprecedented extent. I have as yet met with no occupation in which the existence of a class of master-men has worked well for the interest of the trade, and I have found many which they have reduced to a state of abject wretchedness. It is a peculiar circumstance in connection with the master-men that they abound only in those callings which require a small amount of capital, and which, consequently, render it easy for the operative immediately on the least disagreement between him and his employer to pass from the condition of an operative into that of a trading workman. When among the fancy cabinet-makers I had a statement from a gentleman, in Aldersgate-street, who supplied the materials to these men, that a fancy cabinet-maker, the manufacturer of writing-desks, tea-caddies, ladies’ work-boxes, &c., could begin, and did begin, business on less than 3s. 6d. A youth had just then bought materials of him for 2s. 6d. to “begin on a small desk,” stepping at once out of the trammels of apprenticeship into the character of a master-man. Now this facility to commence business on a man’s own account is far greater in the chimney-sweepers’ trade than even in the desk-makers’, for the one needs no previous training, while the other does.

Thus when other trades, skilled or unskilled, are depressed, when casual labour is with a mass of workpeople more general than constant labour, they naturally inquire if they “cannot do better at something else,” and often resort to such trades as the chimney-sweepers’. It is open to all, skilled and unskilled alike. Distress, a desire of change, a vagabond spirit, a hope to “better themselves,” all tend to swell the ranks of the single-handed master chimney-sweepers; even though these men, from the casualties of the trade in the way of “seasons,” &c., are often exposed to great privations.

There are in all 147 single-handed masters, who are thus distributed throughout the metropolis:—

Southwark (17), Chelsea (11), Marylebone, Shoreditch, and Whitechapel (each 9), Hackney, Stepney, and Lambeth (each 8), St. George’s-in-the-East (7), Rotherhithe (6), St. Giles’ and East London (each 5), Bethnal-green, Bermondsey, Camberwell, and Clapham (each 4), St. Pancras, Islington, Walworth, and Greenwich (each 3), St. James’s (Westminster), Holborn, Clerkenwell, St. Luke’s, Poplar, Westminster, West London, City, Wandsworth, and Woolwich (each 1); in all, 147.

Thus we perceive, that the single-handed masters abound in the suburbs and poorer districts; and it is generally in those parts where the lower rate of wages is paid that these men are found to prevail. Their existence appears to be at once the cause and the consequence of the depreciation of the labour.

Of the single-handed masters there is a sub-class known by the name of “knullers” or “queriers.”

The knullers were formerly, it is probable, known as knellers. The Saxon word Cnyllan is to knell (to knull properly), or sound a bell, and the name “knuller” accordingly implies the sounder of a bell, which has been done, there can be no doubt, by the London chimney-sweepers as well as the dustmen, to announce their presence, and as still done in some country parts. One informant has known this to be the practice at the town of Hungerford in Berkshire. The bell was in size between that of the muffin-man and the dustman.

The knuller is also styled a “querier,” a name derived from his making inquiries at the doors of the houses as to whether his services are required or are likely to be soon required, calling even where they know that a regular resident chimney-sweeper is employed. The men go along calling “sweep,” more especially in the suburbs, and if asked “Are you Mr. So-and-So’s man?” answer in the affirmative, and may then be called in to sweep the chimneys, or instructed to come in the morning. Thus they receive the full charge of an established master, who, for the sake of his character and the continuance of his custom, must do his work properly; while if such work be done by the knuller, it will be hurriedly and therefore badly done, as all work is, in a general way, when done under false pretences.

Some of the sharpest of these men, I am told, have been reared up as sweepers; but it appears, although it is a matter difficult to ascertain with precision, the majority have been brought up to some generally unskilled calling, as scavagers, costermongers, tinkers, bricklayers’ labourers, soldiers, &c. The knullers or queriers are almost all to be found among the lower class chimney-sweepers. There are, from the best information to be obtained, from 150 to 200 of them. Not only do they scheme for employment in the way I have described, but some of them call at the houses of both rich and poor, boldly stating that they had been sent by Mr. —— to sweep the flues. I was informed by several of the master sweepers, that many of the fires which happen in the metropolis are owing to persons employing these “knullers,” “for,” say the high masters, “they scamp the work, and leave a quantity of soot lodged in the chimney, which, in the event of a large fire being kept in the range or grate, ignites.” This opinion as to the fires in the chimneys being caused by the scamped work of the knullers must be taken with some allowance. Tradesmen, whose established business is thus, as they account it, usurped, are naturally angry with the usurpers.

There is another evil, so say the regular masters, resulting from the employment of the knullers—the losses accruing to persons employing them, as “they take anything they can lay their hands upon.”

This, also, is a charge easy to make, but not easy to refute, or even to sift. One master chimney-sweeper told me that when chimneys are swept in rich men’s houses there is almost always some servant in attendance to watch the sweepers. If the rich, I am told, be watchful under these circumstances, the poor are more vigilant.

The distribution of the knullers or queriers is as follows:—Southwark (17), Chelsea and St. Giles’ (11 each), Shoreditch and Whitechapel (10 each), Lambeth (9), Marylebone, Stepney and Walworth (8 each), St. George’s in the East and Woolwich (7 each), Islington and Hackney (6 each), East London, Rotherhithe, and Greenwich (5 each), Paddington, St. Pancras, East London, Rotherhithe and Greenwich (5 each), Paddington, St. Pancras, Bethnal Green, Bermondsey, and Clapham (4 each), Westminster, St. Martin’s, Holborn, St. Luke’s, West London, Poplar, and Camberwell (3 each); St. James’s (Westminster), Clerkenwell, City of London, and Wandsworth (2 each), Kensington (1); in all, 183.

Like the single-handed men the knullers abound in the suburbs. I endeavoured to find a knuller who had been a skilled labourer, and was referred to one who, I was told, had been a working plumber, and a “good hand at spouts.” I found him a doggedly ignorant man; he saw no good, he said, in books or newspapers, and “wouldn’t say nothing to me, as I’d told him it would be printed. He wasn’t a going to make a holy-show [so I understood him] of his-self.”

Another knuller (to whom I was referred by a master who occasionally employed him as a journeyman) gave me the following account. He was “doing just middling” when I saw him, he said, but his look was that of a man who had known privations, and the soot actually seemed to bring out his wrinkles more fully, although he told me he was only between 40 and 50 years old; he believed he was not 46.

“I was hard brought up, sir,” he said; “ay, them as’ll read your book—I mean them readers as is well to do—cannot fancy how hard. Mother was a widow; father was nobody knew where; and, poor woman, she was sometimes distracted that a daughter she had before her marriage, went all wrong. She was a washerwoman, and slaved herself to death. She died in the house [workhouse] in Birmingham. I can read and write a little. I was sent to a charity school, and when I was big enough I was put ’prentice to a gunsmith at Birmingham. I’m master of the business generally, but my perticler part is a gun lock-filer. No, sir, I can’t say as ever I liked it; nothing but file file all day. I used to wish I was like the free bits o’ boys that used to beg steel filings of me for their fifth of November fireworks. I never could bear confinement. It’s made me look older than I ought, I know, but what can a poor man do? No, I never cared much about drinking. I worked in an iron-foundry when I was out of my time. I had a relation that was foreman there. Perhaps it might be that, among all the dust and heat and smoke and stuff, that made me a sweep at last, for I was then almost or quite as black as a sweep.

“Then I come up to London; ay, that must be more nor 20 years back. O, I came up to better myself, but I couldn’t get work either at the gun-makers—and I fancy the London masters don’t like Birmingham hands—nor at the iron-foundries, and the iron-foundries is nothing in London to what they is in Staffordshire and Warwickshire; nothing at all, they may say what they like. Well, sir, I soon got very bad off. My togs was hardly to call togs. One night—and it was a coldish night, too—I slept in the park, and was all stiff and shivery next morning. As I was wandering about near the park, I walked up a street near the Abbey—King-street, I think it is—and there was a picture outside a public-house, and a writing of men wanted for the East India Company’s Service. I went there again in the evening, and there was soldiers smoking and drinking up and down, and I ’listed at once. I was to have my full bounty when I got to the depôt—Southampton I think they called it. Somehow I began to rue what I’d done. Well, I hardly can tell you why. O, no; I don’t say I was badly used; not at all. But I had heard of snakes and things in the parts I was going to, and I gently hooked it. I was a navvy on different rails after that, but I never was strong enough for that there work, and at last I couldn’t get any more work to do. I came back to London; well, sir, I can’t say, as you ask, why I came to London ’stead of Birmingham. I seemed to go natural like. I could get nothing to do, and Lord! what I suffered! I once fell down in the Cut from hunger, and I was lifted into Watchorn’s, and he said to his men, ‘Give the poor fellow a little drop of brandy, and after that a biscuit; the best things he can have.’ He saved my life, sir. The people at the bar—they see’d it was no humbug—gathered 7½d. for me. A penny a-piece from some of Maudslay’s men, and a halfpenny from a gent that hadn’t no other change, and a poor woman as I was going away slipt a couple of trotters into my hand.

“I slept at a lodging-house, then, in Baldwin’s-gardens when I had money, and one day in Gray’s inn-lane I picked up an old gent that fell in the middle of the street, and might have been run over. After he’d felt in all his pockets, and found he was all right, he gave me 5s. I knew a sweep, for I sometimes slept in the same house, in King-street, Drury-lane; and he was sick, and was going to the big house. And he told me all about his machines, that’s six or seven years back, and said if I’d pay 2s. 6d. down, and 2s. 6d. a week, if I couldn’t pay more, I might have his machine for 20s. I took it at 17s. 6d., and paid him every farthing. That just kept him out of the house, but he died soon after.

“Yes, I’ve been a sweep ever since. I’ve had to shift as well as I could. I don’t know that I’m what you call a Nuller, or a Querier. Well, if I’m asked if I’m anybody’s man, I don’t like to say ‘no,’ and I don’t like to say ‘yes;’ so I says nothing if I can help it. Yes, I call at houses to ask if anything’s wanted. I’ve got a job that way sometimes. If they took me for anybody’s man, I can’t help that. I lodge with another sweep which is better off nor I am, and pay him 2s. 9d. a week for a little stair-head place with a bed in it. I think I clear 7s. a week, one week with another, but that’s the outside. I never go to church or chapel. I’ve never got into the way of it. Besides, I wouldn’t be let in, I s’pose, in my togs. I’ve only myself. I can’t say I much like what I’m doing, but what can a poor man do?”