Yearly.
Payment for sweeping 624,000
chimneys (4 daily, according to evidence
before Parliament, by each of
500 boys), 10_d._ per chimney, or yearly £26,000
Soot (according to same account),
say 5_d._ per chimney 13,000
------
Total £39,000
Yearly expenditure 13,317
-------
Yearly profit £25,683
This yielded, then, according to the information submitted to the
House of Commons Select Committee, as the profits of the trade prior
to 1817, an individual yearly gain to each master sweeper of 128_l._;
but, taking Mr. Tooke’s average yearly profit for the six classes of
tradesmen, 270_l._, 225_l._, 180_l._, 135_l._, 90_l._, and 45_l._
respectively, the individual profit averages above 157_l._
The capital, I am informed, would not average above two guineas per
master sweeper, nothing being wanted beyond a few common sacks, made by
the sweepers’ wives, and a few brushes. Only about 20 had horses, but
barrows were occasionally hired at a busy time.
In the foregoing estimates I have not included any sums for apprentice
fees, as I believe there would be something like a balance in the
matter, the masters sometimes paying parents such premiums for the use
of their children as they received from the parishes for the _tuition_
and maintenance of others.
Of the _morals_, _education_, _religion_, _marriage_, &c., of sweepers,
under the two systems, I shall speak in another place.
It may be somewhat curious to conclude with a word of the extent of
chimneys swept by a climbing boy. One respectable master-sweeper told
me that for eleven years he had climbed five or six days weekly. During
this period he thought he had swept fifteen chimneys as a week’s
average, each chimney being at least 40 feet in height; so traversing,
in ascending and descending, 686,400 feet, or 130 miles of a world of
soot. This, however, is little to what has been done by a climber of
30 years’ standing, one of the little men of whom I have spoken. My
informant entertained no doubt that this man had, for the first 22
years of his career, climbed half as much again as he himself had; or
had traversed 2,059,200 feet of the interior of chimneys, or 390 miles.
Since the new Act this man had of course climbed less, but had still
been a good deal employed; so that, adding his progresses for the last
9 years to the 22 preceding, he must have swept about 456 miles of
chimney interiors.