Chimney-Sweepers are a consequence of two things--chimneys and the
use of coals as fuel; and these are both commodities of comparatively
recent introduction.
It is generally admitted that the earliest mention of _chimneys_ is
in an Italian MS., preserved in Venice, in which it is recorded that
chimneys were thrown down in that city from the shock of an earthquake
in 1347. In England, down even to the commencement of the reign of
Elizabeth, the greater part of the houses in our towns had no chimneys;
the fire was kindled on a hearth-stone on the floor, or on a raised
grate against the wall or in the centre of the apartment, and the smoke
found its way out of the doors, windows, or casements.
During the long, and--as regards civil strife--generally peaceful,
reign of Elizabeth, the use of chimneys increased. In a Discourse
prefixed to an edition of Holinshed’s “Chronicles,” in 1577, Harrison,
the writer, complains, among other things, “marvellously altered for
the worse in England,” of the multitude of chimneys erected of late.
“Now we have many chimneys,” he says, “and our tenderlings complain
of rheums, catarrhs, and poses. Then we had none but _reredoses_,
and our heads did never ache.”[57] He demurs, too, to the change in
the material of which the houses were constructed: “Houses were once
builded of willow, then we had oaken men; but now houses are made of
oak, and our men not only become willow, but a great many altogether of
straw, which is a sore alteration.”
In Shakespeare’s time, the chimney-sweepers seem to have become a
recognised class of public cleansers, for in “Cymbeline” the poet says--
“Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
_As chimney-sweepers_ come to dust.”
In this beautiful passage there is an intimation, by the
“chimney-sweepers” being contrasted with the “golden lads and girls,”
that their employment was regarded as of the meanest, a repute it bears
to the present day.
But chimneys seem, like the “sweeps” or “sweepers,” to have been a
necessity of a change of fuel. In the days of “rere-dosses,” our
ancestors burnt only wood, so that they were not subjected to so
great an inconvenience as we should be were our fires kindled without
the vent of the chimney. Our fuel is coal, which produces a greater
quantity of soot, and of black smoke, which is the result of imperfect
combustion, than any other fuel, the smoke from wood being thin and
pure in comparison.
The first mention of the use of coal as fuel occurs in a charter of
Henry III., granting licence to the burgesses of Newcastle to dig for
coal. In 1281 Newcastle is said to have had some slight trade in this
article. Shortly afterwards coal began to be imported into London for
the use of smiths, brewers, dyers, soap-boilers, &c. In 1316, during
the reign of Edward I., its use in London was prohibited because of the
supposed injurious influence of the smoke. In 1600 the use of coal in
the metropolis became universal; about 200 vessels were employed in the
London trade, and about 200,000 chaldrons annually imported.
In 1848, however, there were, besides the railway-borne coals, 12,267
cargoes imported, or 3,418,340 tons. The London coal trade now employs
2700 vessels and 21,600 seamen, and constitutes one-fourth of the whole
general trade of the Thames.
To understand the _necessity_ for chimney-sweepers, and the extent
of the work for them to do, that is to say, the quantity of soot
deposited in our chimneys during the combustion of the three and a half
millions of tons of coals that are now annually consumed in London,
we must first comprehend the conditions upon which the evolution
of soot depends, soot being simply the fine carbonaceous particles
condensed from the smoke of coal fuel, and deposited against the sides
of the chimneys during its ascent between the walls to the tops of
our houses. These conditions appear to have been determined somewhat
accurately during the investigations of the Smoke Prevention Committee.
There are two kinds of smoke from the ordinary materials of
combustion--(A) _Opaque_, or black smoke; (B) _Transparent_, or
invisible smoke.
A. The _Opaque_ smoke, though the most offensive and annoying from
its dirtying properties, is, like the muddiest water, the least
injurious to animal or vegetable health. It consists of the particles
of unconsumed carbon which have not been deposited in the form of soot
in the flue or chimney. This is the black smoke which will be further
described.
B. _Transparent_ smoke is composed of gases which are for the most
part invisible, such as carbonic acid and carbonic oxide; also of
sulphurous acid, but smokes with that component are both visible and
invisible. The sulphurous acid is said by Professor Brande to destroy
vegetation, for it has long been a cause of wonder why vegetation
in towns did not flourish, since carbonic acid (which is so largely
produced from the action of our fires) is the vital air of trees,
shrubs, and plants[58].
I may here observe, that several of the scientific men who gave
the results of years of observation and study in their evidence
to the Committee of the House of Commons, remarked on the popular
misunderstanding of what smoke was, it being generally regarded as
something _visible_. But in the composition of smoke, it appears, one
product may be visible, and another invisible, and both offensive;
while “occasionally you may have from the same materials varieties of
products, all invisible, according to the manner to which they are
supplied with air.”
The Committee requested Dr. Reid to prepare a definition of “smoke,”
and more especially of “black smoke.” The following is the substance of
the doctor’s definition, or rather description:--
1. _Black Smoke_ consists essentially of carbon separated by heat
from coal or other combustible bodies. If this smoke be produced
at a very high temperature, the carbon forms a loose and powdery
soot, comparatively free from other substances; while the lower the
temperature at which black soot is formed, the larger is the amount
of other substances with which it is mingled, among which are the
following:--carbon, water, resin, oily and other inflammable products
of various volatilities, ammonia, and carbonate of ammonia.
When the carbon, oils, resin, and water are associated together in
certain proportions, they constitute _tar_. _Soft pitch_ is produced if
the tar be so far heated that the water is expelled; and _hard pitch_
(resin blackened by carbon) when the oils are volatilized.
In all cases of ordinary combustion, carbonic acid is formed by the
red-hot cinders, or by gases or other compounds containing carbon,
acting on the oxygen of the air. This carbonic acid is discharged
in general as an _invisible_ gas. If the carbonic acid pass through
red-hot cinders, or any carbonaceous smoke at a high temperature, it
loses one particle of oxygen, and becomes carbonic oxide gas. The lost
oxygen, uniting with carbon, forms an additional amount of carbonic
oxide gas, which passes to the external atmosphere as an invisible gas,
unless kindled in its progress, or at the top of the chimney, when its
temperature is sufficiently elevated by the action of air. Carbonic
oxide gas burns with a blue flame, and produces carbonic acid gas.
Black smoke is always associated with carburetted hydrogen gases. These
may be mechanically blended with the oils and resins, but must be
carefully distinguished from them. They form more essentially, when in
a state of combustion, the inflammable matters that constitute flame.
2. _Smoke from Charcoal, Coke, and Anthracite_, is always invisible if
the material be dry. A flame may appear, however, if carbonic oxide be
formed.
3. _Wood or Pyroligneous Smoke_ is rarely black. Water and carbonic
acid are the products of the full combustion of wood, omitting the
consideration of the ash that remains.
4. _Sulphurous Smokes._ Tons of sulphur are annually evolved in various
conditions from copper-works. Offensive sulphurous smokes are often
evolved from various chemical works, as gas-works, acid-works, &c.
5. _Hydrochloric Acid Smoke_ is evolved in general in large quantities
from alkali works.
6. _Metallic Smokes_--when ores of lead, copper, arsenic, &c., are
used--often contain offensive matter in a minute state of division, and
suspended in the smoke evolved from the furnaces.
7. _Putrescent Smokes_, loaded with the products of decayed animal and
vegetable matter, are evolved at times from drains in visible vapours,
more especially in damp weather. The fœtid particles, when associated
with moisture in this smoke, are entirely decomposed when subjected to
heat.
Dr. Ure says, speaking of the cause of the ordinary black smoke above
described, “The inevitable conversion of atmospheric air into carbonic
acid has been hitherto the radical defect of almost all furnaces. The
consequence is, that this gaseous matter is mixed with an atmosphere
containing far too little oxygen, and instead of burning the carbon
and hydrogen, which constitute the coal gases, the carbon is deposited
partly in a pulverized form, constituting smoke or soot, and a great
deal of the carbon gets half-burnt, and forms what is well known under
the name of carbonic oxide, which is half-burnt charcoal.”
“The ordinary smoke,” Professor Faraday said, in his examination before
the Committee, “is the visible black part of the products, the unburnt
portions of the carbon. If you prevent the production of carbonic oxide
or carbonic acid, you increase the production of smoke. You must with
coal fuel either have carbonic acid or oxide, or else black smoke.
“Which is the least noxious?” he was asked, and answered, “As far as
regards health, carbonic acid and carbonic oxide are most noxious to
health; but it is not so much a question of health as of cleanliness
and comfort, because I believe that this town is as healthy as other
places where there are not these fires.
“It is partly the impure coal gas evolved after the fresh charge of
coal which originates the smokes, when not properly supplied with air;
but it is a very mixed question. When a fresh charge of coal is put
upon the fire, a great quantity of evaporable matter, which would be
called impure coal gas according to the language of the question, is
produced; and as that matter travels on in the heated place, if there
be a sufficient supply of air, both the hydrogen and the carbon are
entirely burnt. But if there be an insufficient supply of air, the
hydrogen is taken possession of first, and the carbon is set free in
its black and solid form; and if that goes into the cool part of the
chimney before fresh air gets to it, that carbon is so carried out
into the atmosphere and is the smoke in question. Generally speaking,
the great rush of smoke is when coal is first put on the fire; and
that from the want of a sufficient supply of oxygen at the right time,
because the carbon is cooled so low as not to take fire.”
This eminent chemist stated also that there was no difference in the
ultimate chemical effect upon the air between a wood fire and a coal
fire, but with wood there was not so much smoke set free in the heated
place, which caused a difference in the gaseous products of wood
combustion and of coal combustion. He thought that perhaps wood was
the fuel which would be most favourable to health as affecting the
atmosphere, inasmuch as it produced more water, and less carbonic acid,
as the product of combustion.
What may be called the _peculiarities_ of a smoky and sooty atmosphere
are of course more strongly developed in London than elsewhere, as the
following curious statements show:--
Dr. Reid, in describing metropolitan smoke, spoke of “those black
portions of soot that every one is familiar with, which annoy us, for
instance, at the Houses of Parliament to such an extent that I have
been under the necessity of putting up a veil, about 40 feet long and
12 feet deep, on which, on a single evening, taking the worst kind of
weather for the production of soot, we can count occasionally 200,000
visible portions of soot excluded at a single sitting. We count with
the naked eye the number of pieces entangled upon a square inch. I
have examined the amount deposited on different occasions in different
parts of London at the tops of some houses; and on one occasion at the
Horse Guards the amount of soot deposited was so great, that it formed
a complete and continuous film, so that when I walked upon it I saw
the impression of my foot left as distinctly on that occasion as when
snow lies upon the ground. The film was exceedingly thin, but I could
discover no want of continuity. On other occasions I have noticed in
London that the quantity that escapes into individual houses is so
great that in a single night I have observed a mixture of soot and of
hoar frost collecting at the edge of the door, and forming a stripe
three-quarters of an inch in breadth, and bearing an exact resemblance
to a pepper and salt grey cloth. Those that I refer to are extreme
occasions.”
Mr. Booth mentioned, that one of the gardeners of the Botanic Garden in
the Regent’s-park, could tell the number of days sheep had been in the
park from the blackness of their wool, its oleaginous power retaining
the black.
Dr. Ure informed the Committee that a column of smoke might be seen
extending in different directions round London, according to the way of
the wind, for a distance of from 20 to 30 miles; and that Sir William
Herschel had told him that when the wind blew from London he could not
use his great telescope at Slough.
It was stated, moreover, that when a respirator is washed, the water is
rendered dirty by the particles of soot adhering to the wire gauze, and
which, but for this, would have entered the mouth.
Professor Brande said, on the subject of the public health being
affected by smoke, “I cannot say that my opinion is that smoke produces
any unhealthiness in London; it is a great nuisance certainly; but I
do not think we have any good evidence that it produces disease of any
kind.”
“This Committee,” said Mr. Beckett, “have been told that, by the
mechanical effects of smoke upon the chest and lungs, disease
takes place; that is, by swallowing a certain quantity of smoke
the respiratory organs are injured; can you give any opinion upon
that?”--“One would conceive,” replied the Professor, “that that is the
case; but when we compare the health of London with that of any other
town or place where they are comparatively free or quite free from
smoke, we do not find that difference which we should expect in regard
to health.”
Mr. E. Solly, lecturer on chemistry at the Royal Institution, expressed
his opinion of the effect of smoke upon the health of towns:--
“My impression is,” he said, “that it produces decided evil in two or
three ways: first, mechanically; the solid black carbonaceous matter
produces a great deal of disease; it occasions dirt amongst the lower
orders, and, if they will not take pains to remove it, it engenders
disease. If we could do away the smoke nuisance, I believe a great deal
of that disease would be put an end to. But there is another point, and
that is, the bad effects produced by the gases, sulphurous acid and
other compounds of that nature, which are given out. If we do away with
smoke, we shall still have those gases; and I have no doubt that those
gases produce a great part of the disease that is produced by smoke.”
On the other hand Dr. Reid thought that smoke was more injurious from
the dirt it created than from causing impurity in the atmosphere,
although “it was obvious enough that the inspiration of a sooty
atmosphere must be injurious to persons of a delicate constitution.”
Dr. Ure pronounced smoke, in the common sense of visible black smoke,
unwholesome, but “not so eminently as the French imagine.”
Many witnesses stated their conviction that where poor people resided
amongst smoke, they felt it impossible to preserve cleanliness in
their persons or their dwellings, and that made them careless of
their homes and indifferent to a decency of appearance, so that the
public-house, and places where cleanliness and propriety were in no
great estimation, became places of frequent resort, on the plain
principle that if a man’s home were uncomfortable, he was not likely to
stay in it.
“I think,” said Mr. Booth, “one great effect of the evil of smoke is
upon the dwellings of the poor; it renders them less attentive to their
personal appearance, and, in consequence, to their social condition.”
It was also stated that there were “certain districts inhabited by
the poor, where they will not hang out their clothes to be cleansed;
they say it is of no use to do it, they will become dirty as before,
and consequently they do not have their clothes washed.” The districts
specified as presenting this characteristic are St. George’s-in-the
East and the neighbourhood of Old-street, St. Luke’s.
It must not be lost sight of, that whatever evils, moral or physical,
without regarding merely pecuniary losses, are inflicted by the excess
of smoke, they fall upon the poor, and almost solely on the poor. It is
the poor who must reside, as was said, and with a literality not often
applicable to popular phrases, “in the thick of it,” and consequently
there must either be increased washing or increased dirt.
To effect the mitigation of the nuisance of smoke, two points were
considered:--
A. The substitution of some other material, containing less bituminous
matter, for the “Newcastle coal.”
B. The combustion of the smoke, before its emission into the
atmospheric air, by means of mechanical contrivances founded on
scientific principles.
As regards the first consideration (A) it was recommended that
anthracite, or stone Welsh coal, which is a smokeless fuel, should be
used instead of the Newcastle coal. This coal is almost the sole fuel
in Philadelphia, a city of Quaker neatness beyond any in the United
States of North America, and sometimes represented as the cleanest in
the world. The anthracite coal is somewhat dearer than Newcastle coal
in London, but only in a small degree.
_Coke_ was also recommended as a substitute for coal in private
dwellings.
“Are you of opinion,” Dr. Reid was asked, “that smoke may be in a great
measure prevented by extending the use of gas and coke?” He answered,
“In numerous cities, where large quantities of gas are produced, coke
is very frequently the principal fuel of the poor, and the difficulty
of lighting that coke, and the difficulty of having heat developed
by it in sufficient quantity, necessarily led me to look at the
construction of the fire-places adapted for it. And on a general review
of the question, I do entertain the opinion, that if education were
more extended amongst the humblest classes with respect to the economy
of their own fireside (I mean, literally, the fire-place, at present),
and if gas were greatly extended, so that they did not drain the coal
of the gas-works of the last dregs of gaseous matter, which are of very
little use as gas, and more to be considered as adding to the bulk for
sale than as valuable gas, that a coke might be left which would be
easily accendible, which would be economical, and which, if introduced
into fire-places where an open fire is desired, would _entirely remove
the necessity of sweeping chimneys even with machines_, and would at
the same time give as economical a fire as any ordinary fire-place can
produce, for an ordinary coal fire rarely is powerful in its calorific
emanations till the mass of gas has been expelled, and we see the
cherry-red fire. The amount of gas that has escaped previously to the
production or coking of the fire, is the gas that is valuable in a
manufactory, and if therefore the individual consumer could have, not
the hard-burnt stony coke, but the soft coke, in the condition that
would give at once a cherry-red fire, we should attain the two great
objects--of economising gas, and at the same time of having a lively
cheerful fire. Then this led me to look particularly at the price of a
gas lamp for a poor man. In a poor man’s family, where the breakfast,
the tea and dinner, require the principal attention, and he has some
plain cooking utensils, in the heat of summer I believe that he will
produce as much heat as he wants for those purposes from a single
burner, which can be turned on and left all day, which shall not risk
any boiling over, and by having this pure heat directed to the object
to be warmed, instead of having a heavy iron grate, this plan would, if
gas were generally introduced even into the humblest apartments, prove
a great source of economy in summer.”
Dr. Reid also told the Committee that there was a great prejudice
against the use of coke, many persons considering that it produced a
sulphurous smell; but as all ordinary coal coked itself, or became coke
in an open fire, and was never powerfully calorific till it became
coke, the prejudice would die away.
Very little is said in the Report about the smoke of private houses; an
allusion, however, is made to that portion of the investigation:--“Your
Committee have received the most gratifying assurances of the confident
hope entertained by several of the highest scientific authorities
examined by them, that the black smoke proceeding from fires in private
dwellings, and all other places, may eventually be entirely prevented,
either by the adoption of stoves and grates formed for a perfect
combustion of the common bituminous coal, or by the use of coke, or of
anthracite; but they are of opinion that the present knowledge on that
subject is not such as to justify any legislative interference with
these smaller fires.”
“I should, in prospect,” Professor Faraday said to the Committee, “look
forward to the possibility of a great reduction of the smoke from coal
fires in houses; but my impression is, that, in the present state of
things, it would be tyrannical to determine that that must be done
which at present we do not know can be done. Still, I think there is
reason to believe that it can be effected in a very high degree.”
Dr. Ure also thought that to extend any smoke enactment to private
dwellings might be tyrannical in the present state of the chimneys,
but he had no doubt that smoke might be consumed in fires in private
dwellings.
* * * * *
Such, then, are the causes and remedies for smoke, and consequently of
soot, for smoke, or rather opaque smoke, consists, as we have seen, of
merely the gases of combustion with minute particles of carbon diffused
throughout them; and as smoke is the result of the imperfect burning of
our coals, it follows that chimney-sweepers are but a consequence of
our ignorance, and that, as we grow wiser in the art of economising our
fuel, we shall be gradually displacing this branch of labourers--the
means of preventing smoke being simply the mode of displacing the
chimney-sweepers--and this is another of the many facts to teach us
that not only are we doubling our population in forty years, but we are
likewise learning every year how to do our work with a less number of
workers, either by inventing some piece of mechanism that will enable
one “hand” to do as much as one hundred, or else doing away with some
branch of labour altogether. Here lies the great difficulty of the
time. A new element--science, with its offspring, steam--has been
introduced into our society within the last century, decreasing labour
at a time when the number of our labourers has been increasing at a
rate unexampled in history; and the problem is, how to reconcile the
new social element with the old social institutions, doing as little
injury as possible to the community.
Suppose, for instance, the “smoke nuisance” entirely prevented,
and that Professor Faraday’s prophecy as to the great reduction of
the smoke from coal fires in houses were fulfilled, and that the
expectations of the sanguine and intense Committee, who tell us that
they have “received _the most gratifying_ assurances of the _confident_
hope entertained by several of _the highest scientific_ authorities,
that the black smoke proceeding from fires in private dwellings and all
other places may be eventually _entirely_ prevented,”--suppose that
these expectations, I say, be realized (and there appears to be little
doubt of the matter), what is to become of the 1000 to 1500 “sweeps”
who live, as it were, upon this very smoke? Surely the whole community
should not suffer for them, it will be said. True; but unfortunately
the same argument is being applied to each particular section of the
labouring class,--and the labourers make up by far the greater part of
the community. If we are daily displacing a thousand labourers by the
annihilation of this process, and another thousand by the improvement
of that, what is to be the fate of those we put on one side? and where
shall we find employment for the hundred thousand new “hands” that are
daily coming into existence among us? This is the great problem for
earnest thoughtful men to work out!
* * * * *
But we have to deal here with the chimney-sweepers as they are, and
not as they may be in a more scientific age. And, first, as to _the
quantity of soot_ annually deposited at present in the London chimneys.
The quantity of soot produced in the metropolis every year may be
ascertained in the following manner:--
The larger houses are swept in some instances once a month, but
generally once in three months, and yield on an average six bushels of
soot per year. A moderate-sized house, belonging to the “middle class,”
is usually swept four times a year, and gives about five bushels of
soot per annum; while houses occupied by the working and poorer classes
are seldom swept more than twice, and sometimes only once, in the
twelvemonth, and yield about two bushels of soot annually.
The larger houses--the residences of noblemen and the more wealthy
gentry--may, then, be said to produce an average of six bushels of
soot annually; the houses of the more prosperous tradesmen, about five
bushels; while those of the humbler classes appear to yield only two
bushels of soot per annum. There are, according to the last returns, in
round numbers, 300,000 inhabited houses at present in the metropolis,
and these, from the “reports” of the income and property tax, may be
said to consist, as regards the average rentals, of the proportions
given in the next page.
TABLE SHOWING THE NUMBER OF HOUSES, AT DIFFERENT AVERAGE RENTALS,
THROUGHOUT THE METROPOLIS.
-------------------------------+-----------------------------+------------------------------
Number of Houses whose | Number of Houses whose |Number of Houses whose
Average Rental is above | Average Rental is above | Average Rental is below
£50. | £30 and below £50. | £30.
---------------+-------+-------+-------------+-------+-------+-------------+--------+-------
|Average|Number | |Average|Number | |Average |Number
|Rental.| of | |Rental.| of | |Rental. | of
| |Houses.| | |Houses.| | |Houses.
---------------+-------+-------+-------------+-------+-------+-------------+--------+-------
| £ | | | £ | | | £ |
Hanover-square,| | |Poplar | 44 | 6,882 |Chelsea | 29 | 7,629
May Fair | 150 | 8,795 |Pancras | 41 |18,731 |Wandsworth | 29 | 8,290
St. James’s | 128 | 3,460 |Hampstead | 40 | 1,719 |St. Luke’s | 28 | 6,421
St. Martin’s | 119 | 2,323 |Kensington | 40 |17,292 |Lambeth | 28 | 20,520
London City | 117 | 7,329 |Clerkenwell | 38 | 7,259 |Lewisham | 27 | 5,936
Marylebone | 71 |15,955 |East London | 38 | 4,785 |Whitechapel | 26 | 8,832
Strand | 66 | 3,938 |St. Saviour’s| 36 | 4,613 |Hackney | 25 | 9,861
West London | 65 | 2,745 |Westminster | 36 | 6,647 |Camberwell | 25 | 9,417
St. Giles’s | 60 | 4,778 |St. Olave’s | 35 | 2,365 |Rotherhithe | 23 | 2,834
Holborn | 52 | 4,517 |Islington | 35 |13,558 |St. George’s,| |
| +-------+St. George’s-| | | Southwark | 22 | 7,005
| |53,840 | in-the-East| 32 | 6,151 |Newington | 22 | 10,468
| | | | + ------+Greenwich | 22 | 14,423
| | | | |90,002 |Shoreditch | 20 | 15,433
| | | | | |Stepney | 20 | 16,346
| | | | | |Bermondsey | 18 | 7,095
| | | | | |Bethnal Green| 9 | 13,370
| | | | | | | +-------
| | | | | | | |163,880
---------------+-------+-------+-------------+-------+-------+-------------+--------+-------
Here we see that the number of houses whose average rental is above
50_l._ is 53,840; while those whose average rental is above 30_l._, and
below 50_l._, are 90,002 in number; and those whose rental is below
30_l._ are as many as 163,880; the average rental for all London,
40_l._ Now, adopting the estimate before given as to the proportionate
yield of soot from each of these three classes of houses, we have the
following items:--
Bushels
of Soot per
Annum.
53,840 houses at a yearly rental
above 50_l._, producing 6 bushels of
soot each per annum 323,040
90,002 houses at a yearly rental
above 30_l._ and below 50_l._, producing
5 bushels of soot each per annum 450,010
163,880 houses at a yearly rental
below 30_l._, producing 2 bushels of
soot each per annum 327,760
---------
Total number of bushels of soot annually
produced throughout London 1,100,810
This calculation will be found to be nearly correct if tried by another
mode. The quantity of soot depends greatly upon the amount of volatile
or bituminous matter in the coals used. By a table given at p. 169 of
the second volume of this work it will be seen that the proportion of
volatile matter contained in the several kinds of coal are as follows:--
Cannel or gas coals contain 40 to 60 per cent. of volatile matter.
Newcastle or “house” coals, about 37 per cent.
Lancashire and Yorkshire coals, 35 to 40 per cent.
South Welsh or “steam” coals, 11 to 15 per cent.
Anthracite or “stone” coals, none.
The house coals are those chiefly used throughout London, so that
every ton of such coals contains about 800 lbs. of volatile matter, a
considerable proportion of which appears in the form of smoke; but what
proportion and what is the weight of the carbonaceous particles or soot
evolved in a given quantity of smoke, I know of no means of judging. I
am informed, however, by those practically acquainted with the subject,
that a ton of ordinary house coals will produce between a fourth and
a half of a bushel of soot[59]. Now there are, say, 3,500,000 tons
of coal consumed annually in London; but a large proportion of this
quantity is used for the purposes of gas, for factories, breweries,
chemical works, and steam-boats. The consumption of coal for the making
of gas in London, in 1849, was 380,000 tons; so that, including the
quantity used in factories, breweries, &c., we may, perhaps, estimate
the domestic consumption of the metropolis at 2,500,000 tons yearly,
which, for 300,000 houses, would give eight tons per house. And when we
remember the amount used in large houses and in hotels, as well as by
the smaller houses, where each room often contains a different family,
this does not appear to be too high an average. Mr. M’Culloch estimates
the domestic consumption at one ton per head, men, women, and children;
and since the number of persons to each house in London is 7·5, this
would give nearly the same result. Estimating the yield of soot to be
three-eighths of a bushel per ton, we have, in round numbers, 1,000,000
bushels of soot as the gross quantity deposited in the metropolitan
chimneys every year.
Or, to check the estimate another way, there are 350 master sweepers
throughout London. A master sweeper in a “large way of business”
collects, I am informed, one day with another, from 30 to 40 bushels
of soot; on the other hand, a small master, or “single-handed”
chimney-sweeper is able to gather only about 5 bushels, and scarcely
that. One master sweeper said that about 10 bushels a day would, he
thought, be a fair average quantity for all the masters, reckoning
one day with another; so that at this rate we should have 1,095,500
bushels for the gross quantity of soot annually collected throughout
the metropolis.
We may therefore assume the aggregate yield of soot throughout London
to be 1,000,000 bushels per annum. Now what is done with this immense
mass of refuse matter? Of what use is it?
_The soot is purchased from the masters, whose perquisite it is, by
the farmers and dealers._ It is used by them principally for meadow
land, and frequently for land where wheat is grown; not so much, I
understand, as a manure, as for some quality in it which destroys
slugs and other insects injurious to the crops[60]. Lincolnshire is
one of the great marts for the London soot, whither it is transported
by railway. In Hertfordshire, Cambridge, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and
Kent, however, and many other parts, London soot is used in large
quantities; there are persons who have large stores for its reception,
who purchase it from the master sweepers, and afterwards sell it to
the farmers and send it as per order, to its destination. These are
generally the manure-merchants, of whom the Post-Office Directory
gives 26 names, eight being marked as dealers in guano. I was told by
a sweeper in a large way of business that he thought these men bought
from a half to three-quarters of the soot; the remainder being bought
by the land-cultivators in the neighbourhood of London. Soot is often
used by gardeners to keep down the insects which infest their gardens.
* * * * *
_The value of the Soot_ collected throughout London is the next subject
to engage our attention. Many sweepers have represented it as a very
curious fact, and one for which they could advance no sufficient
reason, that the price of a bushel of soot was regulated by the price
of the quartern loaf, so that you had only to know that the quartern
loaf was 5_d._ to know that such was the price of a bushel of soot.
This, however, is hardly the case at present; the price of the quartern
loaf (not regarding the “seconds,” or inferior bread), is now, at the
end of December, 1851, 5_d._ to 6_d._ according to quality. The price
of soot per bushel is but 5_d._, and sometimes but 4-1/2_d._, but 5_d._
may be taken as an average.
Now 1,000,000 bushels of soot, at 5_d._, will be found to yield
20,833_l._ 6_s._ 8_d._ per annum. But the whole of this quantity is
not collected by the chimney-sweepers, for many of the poorer persons
seldom have their chimneys swept; and by the table given in another
place, it will be seen that not more than 800,000 bushels are obtained
in the course of the year by the London “sweeps.” Hence we may say,
that there are 800,000 bushels of soot annually collected from the
London chimneys, and that this is worth not less than 16,500_l._ per
annum.
* * * * *
_The next question is, how many people are employed in collecting this
quantity of refuse matter_, and how do they collect it, and what do
they get, individually and collectively, for so doing?
To begin with the number of master and journeymen sweepers employed in
removing these 800,000 bushels of soot from our chimneys: according to
the Census returns, the number of “sweeps” in the metropolis in the
years 1841 and 1831 were as follows:--
Increase
in ten
_Chimney-sweepers._ 1841. 1831. years.
Males, 20 years and upwards 619 421 198
„ under 20 years 370 no returns.
Females, 20 years & upwards 44 „
-----
1033
But these returns, such as they are, include both employers and
employed, in one confused mass. To disentangle the economical knot,
we must endeavour to separate the number of master sweepers from the
journeymen. According to the Post-Office Directory the master sweepers
amount to no more than 32, and thus there would be one more than
1000 for the number of the metropolitan journeymen sweepers; these
statements, however, appear to be very wide of the truth.
In 1816 it was represented to the House of Commons, that there were
within the bills of mortality, 200 masters, all--except the “great
gentlemen,” as one witness described them, who were about 20 in
number--themselves working at the business, and that they had 150
journeymen and upwards of 500 apprentices, so that there must then have
been 850 working sweepers altogether, young and old.
These numbers, it must be borne in mind, were comprised in the limits
of the bills of mortality 34 years ago. The parishes in the old bills
of mortality were 148; there are now in the metropolis proper 176, and,
as a whole, the area is much more densely covered with dwelling-houses.
Taking but the last ten years, 1841 to 1851, the inhabited houses have
increased from 262,737 to 307,722, or, in round numbers, 45,000.
Now in 1811 the number of inhabited houses in the metropolis was
146,019, and in 1821 it was 164,948; hence in 1816 we may assume the
inhabited houses to have been about 155,000; and since this number
required 850 working sweepers to cleanse the London chimneys, it is
but a rule of three sum to find how many would have been required for
the same purpose in 1841, when the inhabited houses had increased to
262,737; this, according to Cocker, is about 1400; so that we must
come to the conclusion either that the number of working sweepers had
not kept pace with the increase of houses, or that the returns of
the census were as defective in this respect as we have found them
to be concerning the street-sellers, dustmen, and scavagers. Were we
to pursue the same mode of calculation, we should find that if 850
sweepers were required to cleanse the chimneys of 155,000 houses, there
should be 1687 such labourers in London now that the houses are 307,722
in number.
But it will be seen that in 1816 more than one-half (or 500 out of
850) of the working chimney-sweepers were apprentices, and in 1841
the chimney-sweepers under 20 years of age, if we are to believe the
census, constituted more than one-third of the whole body (or 370 out
of 1033). Now as the use of climbing boys was prohibited in 1842, of
course this large proportion of the trade has been rendered useless;
so that, estimating the master and journeymen sweepers at 250 in 1816,
it would appear that about 500 would be required to sweep the chimneys
of the metropolis at present. To these, of course, must be added the
extra number of journeymen necessary for managing the machines. And
considering the journeymen to have increased threefold since the
abolition of the climbing boys, we must add 300 to the above number,
which will make the sum total of the individuals employed in this trade
to amount to very nearly 800.
By inquiries throughout the several districts of the metropolis, I
find that there are altogether 350 master sweepers at present in
London; 106 of these are large masters, who seldom go out on a round,
but work to order, having a regular custom among the more wealthy
classes; while the other 244 consist of 92 small masters and 152
“single-handed” masters, who travel on various rounds, both in London
and the suburbs, seeking custom. Of the whole number, 19 reside within
the City boundaries; from 90 to 100 live on the Surrey side, and 235 on
the Middlesex side of the Thames (without the City boundaries). A large
master employs from 2 to 10 men, and 2 boys; and a small one only 2 men
or sometimes 1 man and a boy, while a single-handed master employs no
men nor boys at all, but does all the work himself.
The 198 masters employ among them 12 foremen, 399 journeymen, and 62
boys, or 473 hands, and adding to them the single-handed master-men who
work at the business themselves, we have 823 working men in all; so
that, on the whole, there are not less than between 800 and 900 persons
employed in cleansing the London chimneys of their soot.
The next point that presents itself in due order to the mind is, as to
the _mode of working among the chimney-sweepers_; that is to say, how
are the 800,000 bushels of soot collected from the 300,000 houses by
these 820 working sweepers? But this involves a short history of the
trade.