Part 100
“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 8_d._ to 1_s._ 6_d._ 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, 14_s._, 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 35_s._ to 40_s._ 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 4_s._ or 5_s._ a week, so that the resident’s payment may be put at about 50_l._ 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:--
Degrees. January 35·1 February 38·9 March 42·0 April 47·5 May 54·9 June 59·6 July 63·1 August 57·1 September 50·1 October 42·4 November 41·9 December 38·3
London, I may further state, is 2-1/2 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 1-1/4 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--3_s._ 6_d._ 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 6_d._ 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 2_d._ or 3_d._ 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.