Part 92
“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 districts specified as presenting this characteristic are St. George’s-in-the East and the neighbourhood 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 bituminous 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.
_Coke_ 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 fire-places 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 fire-place, at present), and if gas were greatly extended, so that they did not drain the coal of the gas-works 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 accendible, which would be economical, and which, if introduced into fire-places 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 fire-place 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 attain the two great objects--of economising gas, and at the same time of having a lively cheerful fire. Then this 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. Reid also told the Committee that there was a great prejudice against the use of coke, many persons considering that it produced a sulphurous smell; but as all ordinary coal coked 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 effected in a very high degree.”
Dr. Ure 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, and that, 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 forty 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 one hundred, 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 realized (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 hundred thousand new “hands” that are daily coming into existence among us? This is the great problem for earnest 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 twelvemonth, 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 | Number of Houses whose |Number of Houses whose Average Rental is above | Average Rental is above | Average Rental is below £50. | £30 and below £50. | £30. ---------------+-------+-------+-------------+-------+-------+-------------+--------+------- |Average|Number | |Average|Number | |Average |Number |Rental.| of | |Rental.| of | |Rental. | of | |Houses.| | |Houses.| | |Houses. ---------------+-------+-------+-------------+-------+-------+-------------+--------+------- | £ | | | £ | | | £ | Hanover-square,| | |Poplar | 44 | 6,882 |Chelsea | 29 | 7,629 May Fair | 150 | 8,795 |Pancras | 41 |18,731 |Wandsworth | 29 | 8,290 St. James’s | 128 | 3,460 |Hampstead | 40 | 1,719 |St. Luke’s | 28 | 6,421 St. Martin’s | 119 | 2,323 |Kensington | 40 |17,292 |Lambeth | 28 | 20,520 London City | 117 | 7,329 |Clerkenwell | 38 | 7,259 |Lewisham | 27 | 5,936 Marylebone | 71 |15,955 |East London | 38 | 4,785 |Whitechapel | 26 | 8,832 Strand | 66 | 3,938 |St. Saviour’s| 36 | 4,613 |Hackney | 25 | 9,861 West London | 65 | 2,745 |Westminster | 36 | 6,647 |Camberwell | 25 | 9,417 St. Giles’s | 60 | 4,778 |St. Olave’s | 35 | 2,365 |Rotherhithe | 23 | 2,834 Holborn | 52 | 4,517 |Islington | 35 |13,558 |St. George’s,| | | +-------+St. George’s-| | | Southwark | 22 | 7,005 | |53,840 | in-the-East| 32 | 6,151 |Newington | 22 | 10,468 | | | | + ------+Greenwich | 22 | 14,423 | | | | |90,002 |Shoreditch | 20 | 15,433 | | | | | |Stepney | 20 | 16,346 | | | | | |Bermondsey | 18 | 7,095 | | | | | |Bethnal Green| 9 | 13,370 | | | | | | | +------- | | | | | | | |163,880 ---------------+-------+-------+-------------+-------+-------+-------------+--------+-------
Here we see that the number of houses whose average rental is above 50_l._ is 53,840; while those whose average rental is above 30_l._, and below 50_l._, are 90,002 in number; and those whose rental is below 30_l._ are as many as 163,880; the average rental for all London, 40_l._ Now, adopting the estimate before given as to the proportionate yield of soot from each of these three classes of houses, we have the following items:--
Bushels of Soot per Annum. 53,840 houses at a yearly rental above 50_l._, producing 6 bushels of soot each per annum 323,040
90,002 houses at a yearly rental above 30_l._ and below 50_l._, producing 5 bushels of soot each per annum 450,010
163,880 houses at a yearly rental below 30_l._, producing 2 bushels of soot each per annum 327,760 --------- Total number of bushels of soot annually produced throughout London 1,100,810
This calculation will be found to be nearly correct if tried by another mode. The quantity of soot depends greatly upon the amount of volatile or bituminous matter in the coals used. By a table given at p. 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:--
Cannel or gas coals contain 40 to 60 per cent. of volatile matter.
Newcastle or “house” coals, about 37 per cent.
Lancashire and Yorkshire coals, 35 to 40 per cent.
South Welsh or “steam” coals, 11 to 15 per cent.
Anthracite or “stone” coals, none.
The house coals are those chiefly used throughout London, so that every ton of such coals contains about 800 lbs. 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 soot 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 soot[59]. Now there are, say, 3,500,000 tons 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 steam-boats. The consumption of coal for the making of gas in London, in 1849, was 380,000 tons; so that, including the quantity used in factories, breweries, &c., we may, perhaps, estimate the domestic consumption of the metropolis at 2,500,000 tons yearly, which, for 300,000 houses, would give eight tons 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. M’Culloch estimates the domestic consumption at one ton 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 three-eighths of a bushel per ton, we have, in round numbers, 1,000,000 bushels of soot as the gross quantity deposited in the metropolitan chimneys every year.
Or, to check the estimate another way, 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” chimney-sweeper 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 for all the 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 meadow land, 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[60]. Lincolnshire is one of the great marts for the London soot, whither it is transported by railway. In Hertfordshire, 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, and 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, eight 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. Soot is often used 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 quartern loaf, so that you had only to know that the quartern loaf was 5_d._ to know that such was the price of a bushel of soot. This, however, is hardly the case at present; the price of the quartern loaf (not regarding the “seconds,” or inferior bread), is now, at the end of December, 1851, 5_d._ to 6_d._ according to quality. The price of soot per bushel is but 5_d._, and sometimes but 4-1/2_d._, but 5_d._ may be taken as an average.
Now 1,000,000 bushels of soot, at 5_d._, will be found to yield 20,833_l._ 6_s._ 8_d._ 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.” Hence we may say, that there are 800,000 bushels of soot annually collected from the London chimneys, and that this is worth not less than 16,500_l._ 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 journeymen 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 were as follows:--
Increase in ten _Chimney-sweepers._ 1841. 1831. years. Males, 20 years and upwards 619 421 198 „ under 20 years 370 no returns. Females, 20 years & upwards 44 „ ----- 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 journeymen. 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 journeymen sweepers; these statements, however, appear to be very wide of the truth.
In 1816 it was represented to the House of Commons, that there were within the bills of mortality, 200 masters, all--except the “great gentlemen,” as one witness described them, who were about 20 in number--themselves working at the business, and that they had 150 journeymen and upwards of 500 apprentices, so that there must then have been 850 working sweepers altogether, young and old.
These numbers, it must be borne 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 ten 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 sum 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, is about 1400; 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 census were as defective in this respect as we have found them to be concerning the street-sellers, dustmen, and scavagers. Were 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 chimney-sweepers were apprentices, and in 1841 the chimney-sweepers under 20 years of age, if we are to believe the census, 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 threefold 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 altogether 350 master sweepers at present in London; 106 of these are large masters, who seldom go out on a round, but work to order, having a regular custom among the more wealthy classes; while the other 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 2 boys; and a small one only 2 men or sometimes 1 man and a boy, while a single-handed master employs no men nor boys at all, but does all the work himself.