Part 98
The washing among the chimney-sweepers of the present day, when there are scarcely any climbing-boys, is so much an individual matter that it is not possible to speak with any great degree of certainty on the subject, but that it increases may be concluded from the fact that the number of sweeps who resort to the public baths increases.
The first public baths and washhouses opened in London were in the “north-west district,” and situated in George-street, Euston-square, near the Hampstead-road. This establishment was founded by voluntary contribution in 1846, and is now self-supporting.
There are three more public baths: one in Goulston-street, Whitechapel (on the same principle as that first established); another in St. Martin’s, near the National Gallery, which are parochial; and the last in Marylebone, near the Yorkshire Stingo tavern, New-road, also parochial. The charge for a cold bath, each being secluded from the others, is 1_d._, with the use of a towel; a warm bath is 2_d._ in the third class. The following is the return of the number of bathers at the north-west district baths, the establishment most frequented:--
------------------------------+-------+-------+-------+------- | 1847. | 1848. | 1849. | 1850. +-------+-------+-------+------- Bathers |110,940|111,788| 96,726| 86,597 Washers, Dryers, Ironers, &c. | 39,418| 61,690| 65,934| 73,023 Individuals Washed for |137,672|246,760|263,736|292,092
I endeavoured to ascertain the proportion of sweepers, with other working men, who availed themselves of these baths; but there are unfortunately no data for instituting a comparison as to the relative cleanliness of the several trades. When the baths were first opened an endeavour was made to obtain such a return; but it was found to be distasteful to the bathers, and so was discontinued. We find, then, that in four years there have been 406,051 bathers. The following gives the proportion between the sexes, a portion of 1846 being included:--
Bathers--Males 417,424 „ Females 47,114 ------- Total bathers 464,538
The falling off in the number of bathers at this establishment is, I am told, attributable to the opening of new baths, the people, of course, resorting to the nearest.
I have given the return of washers, &c., as I endeavoured to ascertain the proportion of washing by the chimney-sweeper’s wives; but there is no specification of the trades of the persons using this branch of the establishment any more than there is of those frequenting the baths, and for the same reason as prevented its being done among the bathers. One of the attendants at these washhouses told me that he had no doubt the sweepers’ wives did wash there, for he had more than once seen a sweeper waiting to carry home the clothes his wife had cleansed. As no questions concerning their situation in life are asked of the poor women who resort to these very excellent institutions (for such they appear to be on a cursory glance) of course no data can be supplied. This is to be somewhat regretted; but a regard to the feelings, and in some respects to the small prejudices, of the industrious poor is to be commended rather than otherwise, and the managers of these baths certainly seem to have manifested such a regard.
I am informed, however, by the secretary of the north-west district institution, that in some weeks of the summer 80 chimney-sweepers bathed there; always having, he believed, warm baths, which are more effective in removing soot or dirt from the skin than cold. Summer, it must be remembered, is the sweep’s “brisk” season. In a winter week as few as 25 or 20 have bathed, but the weekly average of sweeper-bathers, the year through, is about 50; and the number of sweeper-bathers, he thought, had increased since the opening of the baths about 10 per cent. yearly. As in 1850 the average number of bathers of all classes did not exceed 1646 per week, the proportion of sweepers, 50, is high. The number of female bathers is about one-ninth, so that the males would be about 1480; and the 50 sweepers a week constitute about a thirtieth part of the whole of the third-class bathers. The number of sweep-bathers was known because a sweep is known by his appearance.
I was told by the secretary that the sweepers, the majority bathing on Saturday nights, usually carried a bundle to the bath; this contained their “clean things.” After bathing they assumed their “Sunday clothes;” and from the change in their appearance between ingress and egress, they were hardly recognisable as the same individuals.
In the other baths, where also there is no specification of the bathers, I am told, that of sweepers bathing the number (on computation) is 30 at Marylebone, 25 at Goulston-street, and 15 (at the least) at St. Martin’s, as a weekly average. In all, 120 sweepers bathe weekly, or about a seventh of the entire working body. The increase at the three baths last mentioned, in sweepers bathing, is from 5 to 10 per cent.
Among the lower-class sweepers there are but few who wash themselves even once throughout the year. They eat, drink, and sleep in the same state of filth and dirt as when engaged in their daily avocation. Others, however, among the better class are more cleanly in their habits, and wash themselves every night.
* * * * *
Between _the appearance of the sweepers_ in the streets at the present time and before the abolition of the system of climbing there is a marked difference. Charles Lamb said (in 1823):--
“I like to meet a sweep--understand me, not a grown sweeper--old chimney-sweepers are by no means attractive--but one of those tender novices blooming through their first nigritude, the maternal washings not quite effaced from the cheek--such as come forth with the dawn, or somewhat earlier, with their little professional notes sounding like the _peep peep_ of a young sparrow; or liker to the matin lark should I pronounce them, in their aerial ascents not seldom anticipating the sunrise?”
Throughout his essay, Elia throws the halo of poetry over the child-sweepers, calling them “dim specks,” “poor blots,” “innocent blacknesses,” “young Africans of our own growth;” the natural kindliness of the writer shines out through all. He counsels his reader to give the young innocent 2_d._, or, if the weather were starving, “let the demand on thy humanity rise to a tester” (6_d._).
The appearance of the little children-sweepers, as they trotted along at the master’s or the journeyman’s heels, or waited at “rich men’s doors” on a cold morning, was pitiable in the extreme. If it snowed, there was a strange contrast between the black sootiness of the sweeper’s dress and the white flakes of snow which adhered to it. The boy-sweeper trotted listlessly along; a sack to contain the soot thrown over his shoulder, or disposed round his neck, like a cape or shawl. One master sweeper tells me that in his apprenticeship days he had to wait at the great mansions in and about Grosvenor-square, on some bitter wintry mornings, until he felt as if his feet, although he had both stockings and shoes--and many young climbers were barefoot--felt as if frozen to the pavement. When the door was opened, he told me, the matter was not really mended. The rooms were often large and cold, and being lighted only with a candle or two, no doubt looked very dreary, while there was not a fire in the whole house, and no one up but a yawning servant or two, often very cross at having been disturbed. The servants, however, in noblemen’s houses, he also told me, were frequently kind to him, giving him bread and butter, and sometimes bread and jam; and as his master generally had a glass of raw spirit handed to him, the boy usually had a sip when his employer had “knocked off his glass.” His employer, indeed, sometimes said, “O, _he’s_ better without it; it’ll only larn him to drink, like it did me;” but the servant usually answered, “O, here, just a thimblefull for him.”
The usual dress of the climbing-boy--as I have learned from those who had worn it themselves, and, when masters, had provided it for their boys--was made of a sort of strong flannel, which many years ago was called chimney-sweepers’ cloth; but my informant was not certain whether this was a common name for it or not, he only remembered having heard it called so. He remembered, also, accompanying his master to do something to the flues in a church, then (1817) hung with black cloth, as a part of the national mourning for the Princess Charlotte of Wales, and he thought it seemed very like the chimney-sweepers’ cloth, which was dark coloured when new. The child-sweep wore a pair of cloth trowsers, and over that a sort of tunic, or tight fitting shirt with sleeves; sometimes a little waistcoat and jacket. This, it must be borne in mind, was only the practice among the best masters (who always had to find their apprentices in clothes); and was the practice among them more and more in the later period of the climbing process, for householders began to inquire as to what sort of trim the boys employed on their premises appeared in. The poorer or the less well-disposed masters clad the urchins who climbed for them in any old rags which their wives could piece together, or in any low-priced garment “picked up” in such places as Rosemary-lane. The fit was no object at all. These ill-clad lads were, moreover, at one time the great majority. The clothes were usually made “at home” by the women, and in the same style, as regarded the seams, &c., as the sacks for soot; but sometimes the work was beyond the art of the sweeper’s wife, and then the aid of some poor neighbour better skilled in the use of her scissors and needle, or of some poor tailor, was called in, on the well-known terms of “a shilling (or 1_s._ 6_d._) a day, and the grub.”
The cost of a climbing-boy’s dress, I was informed, varied, when new, according to the material of which it was made, from 3_s._ 6_d._ to 6_s._ 6_d._ independently of the cost of making, which, in the hands of a tailor who “whipped the cat” (or went out to work at his customer’s houses), would occupy a day, at easy labour, at a cost of 1_s._ 6_d._ (or less) in money, and the “whip-cat’s” meals, perhaps another 1_s._ 6_d._, beer included. As to the cost of a sweeper’s second-hand clothing it is useless to inquire; but I was informed by a now thriving master, that when he was about twelve years old his mistress bought him a “werry tidy jacket, as seemed made for a gen’leman’s son,” in Petticoat-lane, one Sunday morning, for 1_s._ 6_d._; while other things, he said, were “in proportionate.” Shoes and stockings are not included in the cost of the little sweeper’s apparel; and they were, perhaps, always bought second-hand. A few of the best masters (or of those wishing to stand best in their customers’ regards), who sent their boys to church or to Sunday schools, had then a non-working attire for them; either a sweeper’s dress of jacket and trowsers, unsoiled by soot, or the ordinary dress of a poor lad.
The street appearance of the present race of sweepers, all adults, may every here and there bear out Charles Lamb’s dictum, that grown sweepers are by no means attractive. Some of them are broad-shouldered and strongly-built men, who, as they traverse the streets, sometimes look as grim as they are dingy. The chimney-scavager carries the implement of his calling propped on his shoulder, in the way shown in the daguerreotype which I have given. His dress is usually a jacket, waistcoat, and trowsers of dark-coloured corduroy; or instead of a jacket a waistcoat with sleeves. Over this when at work the sweeper often wears a sort of blouse or short smock-frock of coarse strong calico or canvas, which protects the corduroy suit from the soot. In this description of the sweeper’s garb I can but speak of those whose means enable them to attain the comfort of warm apparel in the winter; the poorer part of the trade often shiver shirtless under a blouse which half covers a pair of threadbare trowsers. The cost of the corduroy suit I have mentioned varies, I was told by a sweeper, who put it tersely enough, “from 20_s._ _slop_, to 40_s._ _slap_.” The average runs, I believe, from 28_s._ to 33_s._, as regards the better class of the sweepers.
The _diet of the journeymen sweepers and the apprentices_, and sometimes of their working employer, was described to me as generally after the following fashion. My informant, a journeyman, calculated what his food “stood his master,” as he had once “kept hisself.”
Daily. _s._ _d._ Bread and butter and coffee for breakfast 0 2
A saveloy and potatoes, or cabbage; or a “fagot,” with the same vegetables; or fried fish (but not often); or pudding, from a pudding-shop; or soup (a twopenny plate) from a cheap eating-house; average from 2_d._ to 3_d._ 0 2-1/2
Tea, same as breakfast 0 2 ---------- 0 6-1/2
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 5_s._ or 6_s._ 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 8_s._ a week, but the average, I am told, is about 6_s._ per week; while those employed by the low-class sweepers average about 5_s._ a week. The cost of their lodging may be taken at from 1_s._ to 2_s._ 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:--