Part 94

“By what means?--By threatenings, and by giving them a kick or a slap.”

It was also stated that the journeymen used the boys with greater cruelty than did the masters--indeed a delegated tyranny is often the worst--that for very little faults they kicked and slapped the children, and sometimes flogged them with a cat, “made of rope, hard at each end, and as thick as your thumb.”

Mr. John Fisher, a master chimney-sweeper, said:--“Many masters, are very severe with their children. To make them go up the chimneys I have seen them make them strip themselves naked; I have been obliged myself to go up a chimney naked.”

As respects the cruelties of driving boys up chimneys by kindling straw beneath their feet, or thrusting pins into the soles of their feet, I find the following statements given on the authority of B. M. Forster, Esq., a private gentleman residing in Walthamstow:--

“A lad was ordered to sweep a chimney at Wandsworth; he came down after endeavouring to ascend, and this occurred several times before he gave up the point; at last the journeyman took some straw or hay, and lighted it under him to drive him up: when he endeavoured to get up the last time, he found there was a bar across the chimney, which he could not pass; he was obliged in consequence to come down, and the journeyman beat him so cruelly, to use his own expression, that he could not stand for a fortnight.

“In the whole city of Norwich I could find only nine climbing boys, two of whom I questioned on many particulars; one was with respect to the manner in which they are taught to climb; they both agreed in that

## particular, that a larger boy was sent up behind them to prick their

feet, if they did not climb properly. I purposely avoided mentioning about pricking them with pins, but asked them how they did it; they said that they thrust the pins into the soles of their feet. A third instance occurred at Walthamstow; a man told me that some he knew had been taught in the same way; I believe it to be common, but I cannot state any more instances from authority.”

3. On the subject of the _sores, bruises, wounds, burns, and diseases_, to which chimney-sweepers in their apprenticeships were not only exposed, but, as it were, condemned, Mr. R. Wright, a surgeon, on being examined before the Committee, said, “I shall begin with _Deformity_. I am well persuaded that the deformity of the spine, legs, arms, &c., of chimney-sweepers, generally, if not wholly, proceeds from the circumstance of their being obliged not only to go up chimneys at an age when their bones are in a soft and growing state, but likewise from their being compelled by their too merciless masters and mistresses to carry bags of soot (and those very frequently for a great length of distance and time) by far too heavy for their tender years and limbs. The knees and ancle joints mostly become deformed, in the first instance, from the position they are obliged to put them in, in order to support themselves, not only while climbing up the chimney, but more

## particularly so in that of coming down, when they rest solely on the

lower extremities.

“_Sore eyes and eyelids_, are the next to be considered. Chimney-sweepers are very subject to inflammation of the eyelids, and not unfrequently weakness of sight, in consequence of such inflammation. This I attribute to the circumstance of the soot lodging on the eyelids, which first produces irritability of the part, and the constantly rubbing them with their dirty hands, instead of alleviating, increases the disease; for I have observed in a number of cases, when the patient has ceased for a time to follow the business, and of course the original cause has been removed, that with washing and keeping clean they were soon got well.

“_Sores_, for the same reasons, are generally a long time in healing.

“_Cancer_ is another and a most formidable disease, which chimney-sweepers in particular are liable to, especially that of the scrotum; from which circumstance, by way of distinction, it is called the ‘chimney-sweeper’s cancer.’ Of this sort of cancer I have seen several instances, some of which have been operated on; but, in general, they are apt to let them go too far before they apply for relief. Cancers of the lips are not so general as cancers of the scrotum. I never saw but two instances of the former, and several of the latter.”

The “chimney-sweep’s cancer” was always lectured upon as a separate disease at Guy’s and Bartholomew’s Hospitals, and on the question being put to Mr. Wright: “Do the physicians who are intrusted with the care and management of those hospitals think that disease of such common occurrence, that it is necessary to make it a part of surgical education?”--he replied: “Most assuredly; I remember Mr. Cline and Mr. Cooper were particular on that subject; and having one or two cases of the kind in the hospital, it struck my mind very forcibly. With the permission of the Committee I will relate a case that occurred lately, which I had from one of the pupils of St. Thomas’s Hospital; he informed me that they recently had a case of a chimney-sweeper’s cancer, which was to have been operated on that week, but the man ‘brushed’ (to use their expression) or rather walked off; he would not submit to the operation: similar instances of which I have known myself. They dread so much the knife, in consequence of foolish persons telling them it is so formidable an operation, and that they will die under it. I conceive without the operation it is death; for cancers are of that nature that unless you extricate them entirely they will never be cured.”

Of the chimney-sweeper’s cancer, the following statement is given in the Report: “Mr. Cline informed your Committee by letter, that this disease is rarely seen in any other persons than chimney-sweepers, and in them cannot be considered as frequent; for during his practice in St. Thomas’s hospital, for more than 40 years, the number of those could not exceed 20. But your Committee have been informed that the dread of the operation which it is necessary to perform, deters many from submitting to it; and from the evidence of persons engaged in the trade, it appears to be much more common than Mr. Cline seems to be aware of.

“_Cough and Asthma._--Chimney-sweepers are, from their being out at all hours and in all weathers, very liable to cough and inflammation of the chest.

“_Burns._--They are very subject to burns, from their being forced up chimneys while on fire, or soon after they have been on fire, and while over-heated; and however they may cry out, their inhuman masters pay not the least attention, but compel them, too often with horrid imprecations, to proceed.

“_Stunted growth_, in this unfortunate race of the community, is attributed, in a great measure, to their being brought into the business at a very early age.”

* * * * *

To _accidents_ they were frequently liable in the pursuit of their callings, and sometimes these accidents were the being jammed or fixed, or, as it was called in the trade, “stuck,” in narrow and heated flues, sometimes for hours, and until death.

Among these hapless lads were indeed many deaths from accidents, cruelty, privation, and exhaustion, but it does not appear that the number was ever ascertained. There were also many narrow escapes from dreadful deaths. I give instances of each:--

“On Monday morning, the 29th of March, 1813, a chimney-sweeper of the name of Griggs, attended to sweep a small chimney in the brewhouse of Messrs. Calvert and Co., in Upper Thames-street; he was accompanied by one of his boys, a lad of about eight years of age, of the name of Thomas Pitt. The fire had been lighted as early as two o’clock the same morning, and was burning on the arrival of Griggs and his little boy at eight; the fire-place was small, and an iron pipe projected from the grate some little distance, into the flue; this the master was acquainted with (having swept the chimneys in the brewhouse for some years) and therefore had a tile or two taken from the roof, in order that the boy might descend the chimney. He had no sooner extinguished the fire than he suffered the lad to go down; and the consequence, as might be expected, was his almost immediate death, in a state, no doubt, of inexpressible agony. The flue was of the narrowest description, and must have retained heat sufficient to have prevented the child’s return to the top, even supposing he had not approached the pipe belonging to the grate, which must have been nearly red-hot; this, however, was not clearly ascertained on the inquest, though the appearance of the body would induce an opinion that he had been unavoidably pressed against the pipe. Soon after his descent, the master, who remained on the top, was apprehensive that something had happened, and therefore desired him to come up; the answer of the boy was, ‘I cannot come up, master; I must die here.’ An alarm was given in the brewhouse, immediately, that he had stuck in the chimney, and a bricklayer who was at work near the spot attended, and after knocking down part of the brickwork of the chimney, just above the fire-place, made a hole sufficiently large to draw him through. A surgeon attended, but all attempts to restore life were ineffectual. On inspecting the body, various burns appeared; the fleshy part of the legs, and a great part of the feet more particularly, were injured; those parts, too, by which climbing boys most effectually ascend or descend chimneys, viz., the elbows and knees, seemed burnt to the bone; from which it must be evident that the unhappy sufferer made some attempts to return as soon as the horrors of his situation became apparent.”

“In the improvement made some years since by the Bank of England, in Lothbury, a chimney, belonging to a Mr. Mildrum, a baker, was taken down, but before he began to bake, in order to see that the rest of the flue was clear, a boy was sent up, and after remaining some time, and not answering to the call of his master, another boy was ordered to descend from the top of the flue and to meet him half-way; but this being found impracticable, they opened the brickwork in the lower part of the flue, and found the first-mentioned boy dead. In the mean time the boy in the upper part of the flue called out for relief, saying, he was completely jammed in the rubbish and was unable to extricate himself. Upon this a bricklayer was employed with the utmost expedition, but he succeeded only in obtaining a lifeless body. The bodies were sent to St. Margaret’s Church, Lothbury, and a coroner’s inquest, which sat upon them, returned the verdict--Accidental Death.”

“In the beginning of the year 1808, a chimney-sweeper’s boy being employed to sweep a chimney in Marsh-street, Walthamstow, in the house of Mr. Jeffery, carpenter, unfortunately, in his attempt to get down, stuck in the flue and was unable to extricate himself. Mr. Jeffery, being within hearing of the boy, immediately procured assistance. As the chimney was low, and the top of it easily accessible from without, the boy was taken out in about ten minutes, the chimney-pot and several rows of bricks having been previously removed; if he had remained in that dreadful situation many minutes longer, he must have died. His master was sent for, and he arrived soon after the boy had been released; he abused him for the accident, and, after striking him, sent him with a bag of soot to sweep another chimney. The child appeared so very weak when taken out that he could scarcely stand, and yet this wretched being, who had been up ever since three o’clock, had before been sent by his master to Wanstead, which with his walk to Marsh-street made about five miles.”

“In May, 1817, a boy employed in sweeping a chimney in Sheffield got wedged fast in one of the flues, and remained in that situation near two hours before he could be extricated, which was at length accomplished by pulling down part of the chimney.”

On one occasion a child remained above two hours in some danger in a chimney, rather than venture down and encounter his master’s anger. The man was held to bail, which he could not procure.

As in the cases I have described (at Messrs. Calvert’s, and in Lothbury), the verdict was usually “Accidental Death,” or something equivalent.

It was otherwise, however, where wilful cruelty was proven.

The following case was a subject of frequent comment at the time:--

“On Friday, 31st May, 1816, William Moles and Sarah his wife, were tried at the Old Bailey for the wilful murder of John Hewley, alias Haseley, a boy about six years of age, in the month of April last, by cruelly beating him. Under the direction of the learned judge, they were acquitted of the crime of murder, but the husband was detained to take his trial as for a misdemeanor, of which he was convicted upon the fullest evidence, and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. The facts, as proved in this case, are too shocking in detail to relate: the substance of them is, that he was forced up the chimney on the shoulder of a bigger boy, and afterwards violently pulled down again by the leg and dashed upon a marble hearth; his leg was thus broken, and death ensued in a few hours, and on his body and knees were found scars arising from wounds of a much older date.”

* * * * *

This long-continued system of cruelties, of violations of public and private duties, bore and ripened its natural fruits. The climbing boys grew up to be unhealthy, vicious, ignorant, and idle men, for during their apprenticeships their labour was over early in the day, and they often passed away their leisure in gambling in the streets with one another and other children of their stamp, as they frequently had halfpence given to them. They played also at “chuck and toss” with the journeymen, and of course were stripped of every farthing. Thus they became indolent and fond of excitement. When a lad ceased to be an apprentice, although he might be but 16, he was too big to climb, and even if he got employment as a journeyman, his remuneration was wretched, only 2_s._ a week, with his board and lodging. There were, however, far fewer complaints of being insufficiently fed than might have been expected, but the sleeping places were execrable: “They sleep in different places,” it was stated, “sometimes in sheds, and sometimes in places which we call barracks (large rooms), or in the cellar (where the soot was kept); some never sleep upon anything that can be called a bed; some do.”

Mr. T. Allen, a master sweep for 22 years, gave the Committee the following account of _the men’s earnings and_ (what may be called) _the General Perquisites of the trade_ under the exploded system:--

“If a man be 25 years of age, he has no more than 2_s._ a week; he is not clothed, only fed and lodged in the same manner as the boys. The 2_s._ a week is not sufficient to find him clothes and other necessaries, certainly not; it is hardly enough to find him with shoe-leather, for they walk over a deal of ground in going about the streets. The journeyman is able to live upon those wages, for he gets halfpence given him: supposing he is 16 or 20 years of age, he gets the boys’ pence from them and keeps it; and if he happens to get a job for which he receives a 1_s._, he gets 6_d._ of that, and his master the other 6_d._ The boys’ pence are what the boys get after they have been doing their master’s work; they get a 1_d._ or so, and the journeyman takes it from them, and ‘licks’ them if they do not give it up.” [These “jobs,” after the master’s work had been done, were chance jobs, as when a journeyman on his round was called on by a stranger, and unexpectedly, to sweep a chimney. Sometimes, by arrangement of the journeyman and the lad, the proceeds never reached the master’s pocket. Sometimes, but rarely, such jobs were the journeyman’s rightful perquisite.] “Men,” proceeds Mr. Allen, “who are 22 and 23 years of age will play with the young boys and win their money. That is, they get half the money from them by force, and the rest by fraud. They are driven to this course from the low wages which the masters give them, because they have no other means to get anything for themselves, not even the few necessaries which they may want; for even what they want to wash with they must get themselves. As to what becomes of the money the boys get on May-day, when they are in want of clothes, the master will buy them, as check shirts or handkerchiefs. These masters get a share of the money which the boys collect on May-day. The boys have about 1_s._ or 1_s._ 6_d._; the journeyman has also his share; then the master takes the remainder, which is to buy the boys’ clothes and other necessaries, as they say. I cannot exactly tell what the average amount is that a boy will get on the May-day; the most that my boy ever got was 5_s._ But I think that the boys get more than that; I should think they get as much as 9_s._ or 10_s._ apiece. The Christmas-boxes are generally, I believe, divided among themselves (among the boys); but I cannot say rightly. It is spent in buying silk handkerchiefs, or Sunday shoes, I believe; but I am not perfectly sure.”

Of the condition and lot of the operatives who were too big to go up chimneys, Mr. J. Fisher, a master-sweeper, gave the following account:--“_They get into a roving way, and go about from one master to another, and they often come to no good end at last_. They sometimes go into the country, and after staying there some time, they come back again; I took a boy of that sort very lately and kept him like my own, and let him go to school; he asked me one Sunday to let him go to school, and I was glad to let him go, and I gave him leave; he accordingly went, and I have seen nothing of him since; before he went he asked me if I would let him come home to see my child buried; I told him to ask his school-master, but he did not come back again. I cannot tell what has become of him; he was to have served me for twelve months. I did not take him from the parish; he came to me. He said his parents were dead. _The effect of the roving habit of the large boys when they become too large to climb, is, that they get one with another and learn bad habits from one another; they never will stop long in any one place._ They frequently go into the country and get various places; perhaps they stop a month at each; some try to get masters themselves, and some will get into bad company, which very often happens. _Then they turn thieves, they get lazy, they won’t work, and people do not like to employ them lest they should take anything out of their houses. The generality of them never settle in any steady business._ They generally turn loose characters, and people will not employ them lest they should take anything out of the house.”

The criminal annals of the kingdom bear out the foregoing account. Some of these boys, indeed, when they attained man’s estate, became, in a great measure, through their skill in climbing, expert and enterprising burglars, breaking into places where few men would have cared to venture. One of the most daring feats ever attempted and accomplished was the escape from Newgate by a sweeper about 15 years ago. He climbed by the aid of his knees and elbows a height of nearly 80 feet, though the walls, in the corner of the prison-yard, where this was done, were nearly of an even surface; the slightest slip could not have failed to have precipitated the sweeper to the bottom. He was then under sentence of death for highway robbery.

“His name was Whitehead, and he done a more wonderfuller thing nor that,” remarked an informant, who had been his master. “We was sweeping the bilers in a sugar-house, and he went from the biler up the flue of the chimney, it was nearly as high as the Monument, that chimney; I should say it was 30 or 40 feet higher nor the sugar-house. He got out at the top, and slid down the bare brickwork on the outside, on to the roof of the house, got through an attic window in the roof, and managed to get off without any one knowing what became of him. That was the most wonderfullest thing I ever knowed in my life. I don’t know how he escaped from being killed, but he was always an oudacious feller. It was nearly three months after afore we found him in the country. I don’t know where they sent him to after he was brought back to Newgate, but I hear they made him a turnkey in a prison somewhere, and that he’s doing very well now.” The feat at the sugar-house could be only to escape from his apprenticeship.

In the course of the whole Parliamentary evidence the sweepers, reared under the old climbing system, are spoken of as a “short-lived” race, but no statistics could be given. Some died old men in middle age, in the workhouses. _Many were mere vagrants at the time of their death._

I took the statement of a man who had been what he called a “climbing” in his childhood, but as he is now a master-sweeper, and has indeed gone through all grades of the business, I shall give it in my account of the present condition of the sweepers.

Climbing is still occasionally resorted to, especially when repairs are required, “but the climbing boys,” I was told, “are now men.” These are slight dwarfish men, whose services are often in considerable request, and cannot at all times be commanded, as there are only about twenty of them in London, so effectually has climbing been suppressed. These little men, I was told, did pretty well, not unfrequently getting 2_s._ or 2_s._ 6_d._ for a single job.

As regards the _labour question_, during the existence of the climbing boys, we find in the Report the following results:--

The _nominal_ wages to the journeymen were 2_s._ a week, with board and lodging. The apprentices received no wages, their masters being only required to feed, lodge, and clothe them.

The _actual_ wages were the same as the nominal, with the addition of 1_s._ as perquisites in money. There were other perquisites in liquor or broken meat.