Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 February 1875 — Chimney-Sweeps. [ARTICLE]

Chimney-Sweeps.

Twenty or thirty years ago it was a common thing in New York to see mites of boys following their masters in the street or issuing from the chimney-tops with their peculiar wail. Some of them were not more than ten years of age and they looked so wretched that when a child was ill-behaved its mother or nurse would threaten to give it to the chimneysweeps. In Germany and France small boys are still employed cleaning chimneys. In Great Britain a law has been passed forbidding the practice; but less than fifteen years ago the sweeps or “climb-ing-boys” were very numerous, and I can remember seeing a bit of a lad crawling out of one of the tallest chimneys in London. Until the reign of James the First the houses were built only one story high and the chimneys were swept from the floor. The Scotch fashion of multiplying stories then came in and twice or three times a year boys were sent up to sweep down the soot. There was once a famous highwayman who had been a “ climbing boy,” and I think he was the only one of the tribe who ever became notorious. At all events we do not hear more about them in history from the time of James the First until about the middle of the last century, when Jonas Hanway called public attention to their condition. Hanway, you must know, was one of the great philanthropists of his day, aad was the man who first carried an umbrella in London, a performance which exposed him to the jeers of all the impudent little bakers’ and butchers’ boys in the city. No doubt he looked rather queer as he trotted along in the rain with the newfangled thing over his head, and some folks thought him utterly crazy. But he was a wise and good man, living a life that most of us might imitate to advantage. When a “ climbing-boy” came to his house one day Hanway was struck with the poor fellow’s woful face, and asked him how and where he lived. The answers that were made excited the philanthropist’s sympathy, and through public prints and the benevolent societies with which he was connected he drew attention to one of the worst kinds of slavery that ever existed. The “climb-ing-boys” were mostly the children of dissolute parents who sold them to the men chimney-sweeps for a few sovereigns, or, in American money, fifteen 6t twenty dollars. The novices had the greatest dread of ascending the chimney for the first time, and there are several instances of undoubted truth in which the little fellows were violently thrust in by- their masters, and driven up by a fire lighted under them. This seems too horrible for belief, but it was sworn to by a master chimney-sweep before the committee of the British House of Commons. The same man declared that he did not use his own apprentices in that manner, and that when the chimney was small and the boy hesitated about ascending he simply used a stick or his fist! Sometimes the beginner was instructed at the house of his master before real duty was expected of him. An older boy w’ould follow him up a chimney and teach him how to climb by pressing the knees and elbows against the sides of the flue. It was a most painful operation, and the skin would be torn from the child’s arms and feet before he had nearly reached the top. By striving very hard he would probably succeed, but not until he had tumbled down several times and alighted on the shoulders of his stouter companion, who always kept himself firmly fixed in expectation of such a mishap. Every time he fell he had to begin anew, and no matter how sore he was his master forced him to reach the top. A story is told that a very small boy, not more than four years of age, was once sent up a chimney in a countryhouse at Bridlington, Yorkshire, and that he tumbled down and hurt himself so severely that the young ladies of the house took him from his master and nur»ed him themselves. Some food was brought to him, and, seeing a silver fork, he waa quite delighted, exclaiming: “ Papa had such forks as those.” He

also said that the carpet in the drawingroom was like “ papa’s,” and when a ail- J ver watch was shown to him he declared that “ papa’s” was a gold one. At night he wdulti not go to bed until he had said the lord’s Prayer, which he knew perfectly, and he lay awake for some hours comparing the furniture in the room to that in his own home. iVhen he was asked how he came to leave his papa he said that he was gathering flowerg-in his mother’s garden and that a woman came in and asked him if he liked riding. He said “yes,” and she told him that he should riae with her. She put him on a horse in a lane near by, drove him to the sea-side and carried him on board a vessel. The story does not tell what became of the little fellow afterward and we can only hope that he was restored to his parents, or that the young ladies at the country-house adopted him.— St. Nicholas.