say

on Sunday to be ready in case of a chimney being a-fire. — You it is general to compel the boys to go up chimneys on fire? Yes, boys get very ill treated if they do not go up.'-Lords' Minutes, p. 34.

-

'Were you ever forced up a chimney on fire? Yes, I was forced up one once, and, because I could not do it, I was taken home and well hided with a brush by the journeyman. Have you frequently been burnt in ascending chimneys on fire? Three times. Are such hardships as you have described common in the trade with other boys? Yes, they are.'-Ibid. p. 100.

'What is the price for sending a boy up a chimney badly on fire? The price allowed is five shillings, but most of them charge half a guinea.- Is any part of that given to the boy? No, but very often the boy gets half a crown; and then the journeyman has half, and his mistress takes the other part to take care of against Sunday. Have you never seen water thrown down from the top of a chimney when it is on fire? Yes. -Is not that generally done? Yes; I have seen that done twenty times, and the boy in the chimney; at the time when the boy has hallooed out, "It is so hot I cannot go any further;" and then the expression is, with an oath, "Stop, and I will heave a pail of water down."-Ibid. p. 39.

Chimney sweepers are subject to a peculiar sort of cancer, which often brings them to a premature death.

He appeared perfectly willing to try the machines everywhere? I must say the man appeared perfectly willing; he had a fear that he and his family would be ruined by them; but I must say of him, that he is very different from other sweeps I have seen; he attends very much to his own business; he was as black as any boy he had got, and unfortunately in the course of conversation he told me he had got a cancer; he was a fine healthy strong-looking man; he told me he dreaded having an operation performed, but his father died of the same complaint, and that his father was sweeper to King George the Second.'Lords' Minutes, p. 84.

'What is the nature of the particular diseases? The diseases that we particularly noticed, to which they were subject, were of a cancerous description. In what part? The scrotum in particular, &c. Did you ever hear of cases of that description that were fatal? No, I do not think them as being altogether fatal, unless they will not submit to the operation; they have such a dread of the operation that they will not submit to it, and if they do not let it be perfectly removed, they will be liable to the re

turn of it. To what cause do you attribute that disease? I think it begins from a want of care: the scrotum being in so many folds or crevices, the soot lodges in them and creates an itching, and I conceive that, by scratching it and tearing it, the soot gets in and creates the irritability; which disease we know by the name of the chimney sweeper's cancer, and is always lectured upon separately as a distinct disease. Then the Committee understands that the physicians who are entrusted 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? Most assuredly; I remember Mr. Cline and Mr. Cooper were particular on that subject. Without an operation there is no cure? I conceive not; I conceive without the operation it is death; for cancers are of that nature that unless you extirpate them entirely, they will never be cured.'Commons' Rep. pp. 60, 61.

In addition to the life they lead as chimney sweepers, is superadded the occupation of nightmen. fuglars

6

(By a Lord.) Is it generally the custom that many masters are likewise nightmen? Yes; I forgot that circumstance, which is very grievous; I have been tied round the middle and let down several privies, for the purpose of fetching watches and such things; it is generally made the practice to take the smallest boy, to let him through the hole without taking up the seat, and to paddle about there until he finds it; they do not take a big boy, because it disturbs the seat.'- Lords' Minutes, p. 38.

The bed of these poor little wretches is often the soot they have swept in the day.

'How are the boys generally lodged; where do they sleep at night? Some masters may be better than others, but I know I have slept on the soot that was gathered in the day myself. — Where do boys generally sleep? Never on a bed; I never slept on a bed myself while I was apprentice.-Do they sleep in cellars? Yes, very often; I have slept in the cellar myself on the sacks I took out. What had you to cover you? The same. Had you any pillow? No further than my breeches and jacket under my head. How were you clothed? When I was apprentice we had a pair of leather breeches and a small flannel jacket. Any shoes and stockings? Oh dear no; no stockings. - Had you any other clothes for Sunday? Sometimes we had

an old bit of a jacket, that we might wash out ourselves, and a shirt.'- Lords' Minutes, p. 40.

Girls are occasionally employed as chimney sweepers.

'Another circumstance, which has not been mentioned to the Committee, is, that there are several little girls employed; there are two of the name of Morgan at Windsor, daughters of the chimney sweeper who is employed to sweep the chimneys of the Castle; another instance at Uxbridge, and at Brighton, and at Whitechapel (which was some years ago), and at Hadley near Barnet, and Witham in Essex, and elsewhere.'-Commons' Report, p. 71.

Another peculiar danger to which chimney sweepers are exposed, is the rottenness of the pots at the top of chimneys; for they must ascend to the very summit, and show their brushes above them, or there is no proof that the work is properly completed. These chimneypots, from their exposed situation, are very subject to decay; and when the poor little wretch has worked his way up to the top, pot and boy give way together, and are both shivered to atoms. There are many instances of this in the evidence before both Houses. When they outgrow the power of going up a chimney, they are fit for nothing else. The miseries they have suffered lead to nothing. They are not only enormous, but unprofitable: having suffered, in what is called the happiest part of life, every misery which an human being can suffer, they are then cast out to rob and steal, and given up to the law.

Not the least of their miseries, while their trial endures, is their exposure to cold. It will easily be believed that much money is not expended on the clothes of a poor boy stolen from his parents, or sold by them for a few shillings, and constantly occupied in dirty work. Yet the nature of their occupations renders chimney sweepers peculiarly susceptible of cold. And as chimneys must be swept very early, at four or five o'clock of a winter morning, the poor boys are shivering at the door, and attempting by repeated ringings to rouse the profligate

footman; but the more they ring, the more the footman does not come.

'Do they go out in the winter time without stockings? Oh yes. Always? I never saw one go out with stockings; I have known masters make their boys pull off their leggings, and cut off the feet, to keep their feet warm when they have chilblains. Are chimney sweepers' boys peculiarly subject to chilblains? Yes; I believe it is owing to the weather: they often go out at two or three in the morning, and their shoes are generally very bad. Do they go out at that hour at Christmas? Yes; a man will have twenty jobs at four, and twenty more at five or six. Are chimneys generally swept much about Christmas time? Yes; they are in general; it is left to the Christmas week.— Do you suppose it is frequent that, in the Christmas week, boys are out from three o'clock in the morning to nine or ten? Yes, further than that; I have known that a boy has been only in and out again directly all day till five o'clock in the evening. Do you consider the journeymen and masters treat those boys generally with greater cruelty than other apprentices in other trades are treated? They do, most horrid and shocking.'Lords' Minutes, p. 33.

The following is the reluctant evidence of a master.

At what hour in the morning did your boys go out upon their employment? According to orders. At any time? To be sure; suppose a nobleman wished to have his chimney done before four or five o'clock in the morning, it was done, or how were the servants to get their things done? - Supposing you had an order to attend at four o'clock in the morning in the month of December, you sent your boy? I was generally with him, or had a careful follower with him. Do you think those early hours beneficial for him? I do: and I have heard that "early to bed and early to rise, is the way to be healthy, wealthy, and wise."-Did they always get in as soon as they knocked? No; it would be pleasant to the profession if they could. - How long did they wait? Till the servants please to rise. — How long might that be? According how heavy they were to sleep.

How long was that? It is impossible to say; ten minutes at one house, and twenty at another.-Perhaps half an hour? We cannot see in the dark how the minutes go. Do think it healthy to let them stand there twenty minutes at four o'clock in the morning in the winter time? He has a cloth to wrap

you

himself in like a mantle, and keep himself warm.'-Lords' Minutes, pp. 138, 139.

We must not forget sore eyes. Soot lodges on their eyelids, produces irritability, which requires friction; and the friction of dirty hands of course increases the disease. The greater proportion of chimney sweepers are in consequence blear-eyed. The boys are very small, but they are compelled to carry heavy loads of soot.

'Are you at all lame yourself? No; but I am "knappedkneed" with carrying heavy loads when I was an apprentice. That was the occasion of it? It was. -In general, are persons employed in your trade either stunted or knock-kneed by carrying heavy loads during their childhood? It is owing to their masters a great deal; and when they climb a great deal it makes them weak.'. Commons' Report, p. 58.

In climbing a chimney, the great hold is by the knees and elbows. A A young child of six or seven years old, working with knees and elbows against hard bricks, soon rubs off the skin from these bony projections, and is forced to climb high chimneys with raw and bloody knees and elbows.

'Are the boys' knees and elbows rendered sore when they first begin to learn to climb? Yes, they are, and pieces out of them.

Is that almost generally the case? It is; there is not one out of twenty who is not; and they are sure to take the scars to their grave: I have some now. Are they usually compelled to continue climbing while those sores are open? Yes; the way they use to make them hard is that way. Might not this severity be obviated by the use of pads in learning to climb? Yes; but they consider in the business, learning a boy, that he is never thoroughly learned until the boy's knees are hard after being sore; then they consider it necessary to put a pad on, from seeing the boys have bad knees; the children generally walk stiff-kneed. Is it usual among the chimney sweepers to teach their boys to learn by means of pads? No; they learn them with nearly naked knees. Is it done in one instance in twenty? No, nor one in fifty.'-Lords' Minutes, p. 32.

According to the humanity of the master, the soot re