Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 July 1875 — The Training of Chimney-Sweepers. [ARTICLE]

The Training of Chimney-Sweepers.

In his speech in the House of Lords in May last on the Chimney-sweepers’ bill Lord Shaftesbury gave some revolting details of the cruelties practiced upon climbing boys. It appeared, he said, from evidence tafcen in 1863 that the age at which training commenced was from -siX ' .to eight, generally six—“ a nice trainable age,” said the masters. There were instances of five and even of4l. The hours of work in the smaller towns were eight to nine; in the larger from twelve to sixteen, work beginning at four o’clock, three and even two in the morning. Six-ty-three witnesses w r ere examined from all parts of England, thirty-three of whom were master sweeps. Then followed the mode of doing it. Of the training, Mr. Kuff, of Nottingham, a master sweep, said: “No one knows the cruelty which a boy has to undergo in learning. The flesh must be hardened. This must be done by rubbing it, chiefly on the elbows and knees, with the strongest brine, close by a hot fire. You must stand over them with a cane, or coax them by a promise of a half-penny, etc., if they'will stand a few more rubs. At first they will come back from their work streaming with blood, and the knees looking as if the caps had been pulled off. Then they must be rubbedwith brine again.” “ The following description,” said the Commissioners, “is so painful that we should hesitate to record it were it not amply confirmed:” y If, as often happens,” says a master sweep, “ a boy is gloomy or sleepy, or anywise 4 linty,’ and you have other jobs on at the same time, though I should be as kind as I -bould, you must ill-treat him somehow, either with the hand or brush,

or something. It is remembering the cruelty which I have suffered which makes me so strong against boys being employed. I have the marks’of it on my body now, and I believe the biggest part of the sweeps in the town have the same. That (showing a deep scar across the bottom of the calf of the leg) was made by a blow from my master with an ash-plant— i. e., a young ash tree that is supple and will not break—when I was six years old; it was cut to the bone, which had to be scraped to heal the wound. I have marks of nailed boots, etc., on other parts.” [Hear, hear.] Mr. Stransfield, another master-sweep, said: “In learning a child you must use violence. I shudder now when I think of it. I have gone to bed with my knee and elbows scabbed and raw, and the inside of my thighs all scarified.” Another said: “At first they will come back from their work with their arms and knees streaming with blood, and the knees looking as if the caps had been pulled off. Then they must be rubbed with brine again, and perhaps go off at once to another chimney. In some boys I have heard that the flesh does not harden for years.” [Hear ] “ I found a boy,” states one of the Commissioners, “of about eight, in the market, who had run away from some place of correction. Part of the knee-caps and torn off, the gristle all showed white, got the guiders (tendons) all around were like white string, or an imitation of white cotton. His back was covered with sores all the way up.” To harden his knees a lotion made of “ old netting”— i. e., urine kept long for the purpose, simmered with hot cinders—was put on them. “It was like killing him,” said the sweep, “ and I had to stand by and see it all.” “Why, I myself,” says another, “have kept a lad four hours up a chimney when he was so sore that he could scarcely move; but I would not let him come down till he had finished. It has often made my heart aghe to hear them wail, even when I was what you may call a party to it. In learning a child,” he goes on, “ you can’t be soft with him; you must use violence.”