WORK OF SWEEPS

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 125, 29 May 1930, Page 18

WORK OF SWEEPS

A SHAMEFUL PAST

"THE CLIMBING BOYS"

The ancient and sooty calling of the chimney sweep came in for international notice and a place in the news head-lines not. long 'ago when delegates to the Disarmament Conference paused in the courtyard of St. James's Palace to watch one of the modern exponets of that vocation at work,-■ says a writer in the "New, York times." American observers regarded the incident, no doubt, afe sight-seeing of a sort,: so alien would '* appear to 'the majority of their, countrymen. Chiinn'ey sweeps,v like chimney, pots,' seem toi'belong to* the flues of other lands. Obviously we must have both, or something closely enough "■•akin to them to perform1, their very necessary functions, yet so unfamiliar,are .they that the American whose eye is caught by the rows and rows of spinning protuberances on the,low chimney, tops, of Edinburgh or London pauses to-, ask what and why .they, are,'and a tourist, meeting a chimney sweep'in the flesh, feels as if ho were living in a book. : In America chimneys aro made to draw by ; less conspicuous devices, and, unless,,somethings'goes wrpng, never attract the attention of th> avorage man. Likewise, the average citizen may pass .his .whole, life-without a thought of ■ how /.chimneys are- .tended, without efer, seeing <ir ; hearing .of : a chimney ;sweep. Our chimneys, ■to be sure, collect a lining, of: soot that must from time to time be removed. There are specialists for the task, but we do not call' them; chimney- sweeps, nor do we know much of them. They are "chimney cleaners/? and they arrive and depart with their/apparatus by motor-truck so: inconspicuously that the apartment dweller seldom knows they have been called in. ."■. , • .. : • LIKE EOMANCE. In London, it is different. One reason, in particular, iis that people who are dependent upon ...the grate for warmth are far more chimney-minded. Then, t00,,01d chimneys, of which London has so many, force fhomselyes upon the attention far. more than those of modern construction. And so one cannot be in London, indefinitely without experiencing or at least hearing of tho picturesquely named chimney sweep. >. There is a touch of romance in the idea.of the. chimney sweep making his way through' the' dark arteries of a building where no other human being may go. But the term connotes pity, too. The sooty "calling has a shameful past. . Time was when the work was :dono by'small boys, some'■ of them as young 'as five years, miserably kept by 'cruel masters who lived, on .their labour. Thoy wero hauled out of bed sometimes as early as 3 a.m., most of -the sweeping being done ; early, and dispatched up tho flues with their' brooms then ■they were made to tug the hoavy bags ,6f soot away. .For long the evil went on as a thing accepted. But early in the nineteenth ■century there began in England a concerted movement against "live chimney Sweeping,'.' which took definite form in tho "Society for Suppressing the Necessity of Climbing Boys." Mechanical chimney sweepers were introduced and ■found_ .practicable,' -with the aid of simplified chimneys, -in,'- some cases, and in .1840 an Act of ParliamejQt put an end to this phase of child' labour. Tho "machine" devised > to" do the sweep's work consisted of a lai'ge specially designed whalebone brush and a bundle of fine'cane'rods three or four feet long. These rods wero attached to the.brush and to each other in such a way as to lengthen the handle as the brush was pushed along the-inner surface of the chimney, scraping off the soot. ' ■ - The-London chimney sweep of to-day still-performs' his task with brushes and rods, from, outside'-the ch'i—ney. .;