“On Friday, 31st May, 1816, William Moles and Sarah his wife, were
tried at the Old Bailey for the wilful murder of John Hewley, alias
Haseley, a boy about six years of age, in the month of April last, by
cruelly beating him. Under the direction of the learned judge, they
were acquitted of the crime of murder, but the husband was detained to
take his trial as for a misdemeanor, of which he was convicted upon
the fullest evidence, and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. The
facts, as proved in this case, are too shocking in detail to relate:
the substance of them is, that he was forced up the chimney on the
shoulder of a bigger boy, and afterwards violently pulled down again by
the leg and dashed upon a marble hearth; his leg was thus broken, and
death ensued in a few hours, and on his body and knees were found scars
arising from wounds of a much older date.”
* * * * *
This long-continued system of cruelties, of violations of public and
private duties, bore and ripened its natural fruits. The climbing boys
grew up to be unhealthy, vicious, ignorant, and idle men, for during
their apprenticeships their labour was over early in the day, and
they often passed away their leisure in gambling in the streets with
one another and other children of their stamp, as they frequently had
halfpence given to them. They played also at “chuck and toss” with
the journeymen, and of course were stripped of every farthing. Thus
they became indolent and fond of excitement. When a lad ceased to be
an apprentice, although he might be but 16, he was too big to climb,
and even if he got employment as a journeyman, his remuneration was
wretched, only 2_s._ a week, with his board and lodging. There were,
however, far fewer complaints of being insufficiently fed than might
have been expected, but the sleeping places were execrable: “They sleep
in different places,” it was stated, “sometimes in sheds, and sometimes
in places which we call barracks (large rooms), or in the cellar (where
the soot was kept); some never sleep upon anything that can be called a
bed; some do.”
Mr. T. Allen, a master sweep for 22 years, gave the Committee the
following account of _the men’s earnings and_ (what may be called) _the
General Perquisites of the trade_ under the exploded system:--
“If a man be 25 years of age, he has no more than 2_s._ a week; he
is not clothed, only fed and lodged in the same manner as the boys.
The 2_s._ a week is not sufficient to find him clothes and other
necessaries, certainly not; it is hardly enough to find him with
shoe-leather, for they walk over a deal of ground in going about the
streets. The journeyman is able to live upon those wages, for he gets
halfpence given him: supposing he is 16 or 20 years of age, he gets
the boys’ pence from them and keeps it; and if he happens to get a job
for which he receives a 1_s._, he gets 6_d._ of that, and his master
the other 6_d._ The boys’ pence are what the boys get after they
have been doing their master’s work; they get a 1_d._ or so, and the
journeyman takes it from them, and ‘licks’ them if they do not give it
up.” [These “jobs,” after the master’s work had been done, were chance
jobs, as when a journeyman on his round was called on by a stranger,
and unexpectedly, to sweep a chimney. Sometimes, by arrangement of
the journeyman and the lad, the proceeds never reached the master’s
pocket. Sometimes, but rarely, such jobs were the journeyman’s rightful
perquisite.] “Men,” proceeds Mr. Allen, “who are 22 and 23 years of
age will play with the young boys and win their money. That is, they
get half the money from them by force, and the rest by fraud. They are
driven to this course from the low wages which the masters give them,
because they have no other means to get anything for themselves, not
even the few necessaries which they may want; for even what they want
to wash with they must get themselves. As to what becomes of the money
the boys get on May-day, when they are in want of clothes, the master
will buy them, as check shirts or handkerchiefs. These masters get a
share of the money which the boys collect on May-day. The boys have
about 1_s._ or 1_s._ 6_d._; the journeyman has also his share; then the
master takes the remainder, which is to buy the boys’ clothes and other
necessaries, as they say. I cannot exactly tell what the average amount
is that a boy will get on the May-day; the most that my boy ever got
was 5_s._ But I think that the boys get more than that; I should think
they get as much as 9_s._ or 10_s._ apiece. The Christmas-boxes are
generally, I believe, divided among themselves (among the boys); but I
cannot say rightly. It is spent in buying silk handkerchiefs, or Sunday
shoes, I believe; but I am not perfectly sure.”
Of the condition and lot of the operatives who were too big to go
up chimneys, Mr. J. Fisher, a master-sweeper, gave the following
account:--“_They get into a roving way, and go about from one master to
another, and they often come to no good end at last_. They sometimes
go into the country, and after staying there some time, they come
back again; I took a boy of that sort very lately and kept him like
my own, and let him go to school; he asked me one Sunday to let him
go to school, and I was glad to let him go, and I gave him leave; he
accordingly went, and I have seen nothing of him since; before he went
he asked me if I would let him come home to see my child buried; I
told him to ask his school-master, but he did not come back again. I
cannot tell what has become of him; he was to have served me for twelve
months. I did not take him from the parish; he came to me. He said his
parents were dead. _The effect of the roving habit of the large boys
when they become too large to climb, is, that they get one with another
and learn bad habits from one another; they never will stop long in any
one place._ They frequently go into the country and get various places;
perhaps they stop a month at each; some try to get masters themselves,
and some will get into bad company, which very often happens. _Then
they turn thieves, they get lazy, they won’t work, and people do not
like to employ them lest they should take anything out of their houses.
The generality of them never settle in any steady business._ They
generally turn loose characters, and people will not employ them lest
they should take anything out of the house.”
The criminal annals of the kingdom bear out the foregoing account. Some
of these boys, indeed, when they attained man’s estate, became, in a
great measure, through their skill in climbing, expert and enterprising
burglars, breaking into places where few men would have cared to
venture. One of the most daring feats ever attempted and accomplished
was the escape from Newgate by a sweeper about 15 years ago. He climbed
by the aid of his knees and elbows a height of nearly 80 feet, though
the walls, in the corner of the prison-yard, where this was done, were
nearly of an even surface; the slightest slip could not have failed to
have precipitated the sweeper to the bottom. He was then under sentence
of death for highway robbery.
“His name was Whitehead, and he done a more wonderfuller thing nor
that,” remarked an informant, who had been his master. “We was sweeping
the bilers in a sugar-house, and he went from the biler up the flue of
the chimney, it was nearly as high as the Monument, that chimney; I
should say it was 30 or 40 feet higher nor the sugar-house. He got out
at the top, and slid down the bare brickwork on the outside, on to the
roof of the house, got through an attic window in the roof, and managed
to get off without any one knowing what became of him. That was the
most wonderfullest thing I ever knowed in my life. I don’t know how
he escaped from being killed, but he was always an oudacious feller.
It was nearly three months after afore we found him in the country. I
don’t know where they sent him to after he was brought back to Newgate,
but I hear they made him a turnkey in a prison somewhere, and that he’s
doing very well now.” The feat at the sugar-house could be only to
escape from his apprenticeship.
In the course of the whole Parliamentary evidence the sweepers, reared
under the old climbing system, are spoken of as a “short-lived” race,
but no statistics could be given. Some died old men in middle age, in
the workhouses. _Many were mere vagrants at the time of their death._
I took the statement of a man who had been what he called a “climbing”
in his childhood, but as he is now a master-sweeper, and has indeed
gone through all grades of the business, I shall give it in my account
of the present condition of the sweepers.
Climbing is still occasionally resorted to, especially when repairs are
required, “but the climbing boys,” I was told, “are now men.” These are
slight dwarfish men, whose services are often in considerable request,
and cannot at all times be commanded, as there are only about twenty
of them in London, so effectually has climbing been suppressed. These
little men, I was told, did pretty well, not unfrequently getting 2_s._
or 2_s._ 6_d._ for a single job.
As regards the _labour question_, during the existence of the climbing
boys, we find in the Report the following results:--
The _nominal_ wages to the journeymen were 2_s._ a week, with board and
lodging. The apprentices received no wages, their masters being only
required to feed, lodge, and clothe them.
The _actual_ wages were the same as the nominal, with the addition of
1_s._ as perquisites in money. There were other perquisites in liquor
or broken meat.
In the Reports are no accounts of the duration of labour throughout the
year, nor can I obtain from master-sweepers, who were in the business
during the old mode, any sufficient data upon which to found any
calculations. The employment, however, seems to have been generally
_continuous_, running through the year, though in the course of the
twelvemonth one master would have four and another six different
journeymen, but only one at a time. The vagrant propensities of the
class is a means of accounting for this.
The _nominal_ wages of those journeymen who resided in their own
apartments were generally 14_s._ a week, and their _actual_ about
2_s._ 6_d._ extra in the form of perquisites. Others resided “on the
premises,” having the care of the boys, with board and lodgings and
5_s._ a week in money _nominally_, and 7_s._ 6_d._ _actually_, the
perquisites being worth 2_s._ 6_d._
Concerning the _general_ or average wages of the whole trade, I can
only present the following computation.
Mr. Tooke, in his evidence before the House of Commons, stated
that the Committee, of which he was a member, had ascertained that
one boy on an average swept about four chimneys daily, at prices
varying from 6_d._ to 1_s._ 6_d._, or a medium return of about 10_d._
per chimney, exclusive of the soot, then worth 8_d._ or 9_d._ a
bushel. “It appears,” he said, “from a datum I have here, that those
chimney-sweepers who keep six boys (the greatest number allowed by law)
gain, on an average, nearly 270_l._; five boys, 225_l._; four boys,
180_l._; three boys, 135_l._; two boys, 90_l._; and one boy 45_l._
(yearly), exclusive of the soot, which is, I should suppose, upon an
average, from half a bushel to a bushel every time the chimney is
swept.”
“Out of the profits you mention,” he was then asked, “the master has to
maintain the boys?”--“Yes,” was the answer, “and when the expenses of
house and cellar rent, and the wages of journeymen, and the maintenance
of apprentices, are taken into the account, the number of master
chimney-sweepers is not only more than the trade will support, but
exceeds, by above one-third, what the public exigency requires. The
Committee also ascertained that the 200 master chimney-sweepers in the
metropolis were supposed to have in their employment 150 journeymen and
500 boys.”
The matter may be reduced to a tabular form, expressing the amount in
money--for it is not asserted that the masters generally gained on the
charge for their journeymen’s board and lodging--as follows:--