Annual income for cleansing chimneys
and soot £100,000
Expenditure for wages, rent, wear,
and tear, keep of horses, &c., say 20,000
-------
Annual profit of master chimney-sweepers
of London £80,000
This amount of profit, divided among 350 masters, gives about 230_l._
per annum to each individual; it is only by a few, however, that such
a sum is realized, as in the 100,000_l._ paid by the London public
to the sweepers’ trade, is included the sum received by the men who
work single-handed, “on their own hook,” as they say, employing
no journeymen. Of these men’s earnings, the accounts I heard from
themselves and the other master sweepers were all accordant, that they
barely made journeymen’s wages. They have the very worst-paid portion
of the trade, receiving neither for their sweeping nor their soot the
prices obtained by the better masters; indeed they very frequently sell
their soot to their more prosperous brethren. Their general statement
is, that they make “eighteen pence a day, and all told.” Their receipts
then, and they have no perquisites as have the journeymen, are, in a
slack time, about 1_s._ a day (and some days they do not get a job);
but in the winter they are busier, as it is then that sweepers are
employed by the poor; and at that period the “master-men” may make from
15_s._ to 20_s._ a week each; so that, I am assured, the average of
their weekly takings may be estimated at 12_s._ 6_d._
Now, deducting the expenditure from the receipts of 100,000_l._ (for
sweeping and soot), the balance, as we have seen, is 80,000_l._, an
amount of profit which, if equally divided among the three classes of
the trade, will give the following sums:--
Yearly, each. Yearly, total.
Profits of 150 single-handed £ _s._ £
master-men 32 10 4,940
Do. 92 small masters 200 0 18,400
Do. 106 large masters 500 0 53,000
------
£76,340
Nor is this estimate of the masters’ profits, I am assured,
extravagant. One of the smaller sweepers, but a prosperous man in his
way, told me that he knew a master sweeper who was “as rich as Crœser,
had bought houses, and could not write his own name.”
We have now but to estimate the amount of capital invested in the
chimney-sweepers’ trade, and then to proceed to the characteristics of
the men.
1200 machines, 2_l._ 10_s._ each (present £
average value) 3000
3000 sacks, 2_s._ 6_d._ each 385
25 horses, 20_l._ each 500
25 sets of harness, 2_l._ each 50
25 carts, 12_l._ each 300
-----
£4235
It may be thought that the sweepers will require the services of more
than 25 horses, but I am assured that such is not the case as regards
the soot business, for the soot is carted away from the sweepers’
premises by the farmer or other purchaser.
It would appear, then, that the facts of the chimney-sweepers’ trade
are briefly as under:--
The gross quantity of soot collected yearly throughout London is
800,000 bushels. The value of this, sold as manure, at 5_d._ per
bushel, is 16,500_l._
There are 800 to 900 people employed in the trade, 200 of whom are
masters employing journeymen, 150 single-handed master-men, and 470
journeymen and under journeymen.
The annual income of the entire number of journeymen is 10,500_l._
without perquisites, or 13,000_l._ with, which gives an average weekly
wage to the operatives of 10_s._ 6_d._
The annual income of the masters and leeks is, for sweeping and soot,
100,000_l._
The annual expenditure of the masters for rent, keep of horses, wear
and tear, and wages, is 20,000_l._
The gross annual profit of the 350 masters is 80,000_l._, which is
at the rate of about 35_l._ per annum to each of the single-handed
men, 200_l._ to each of the smaller masters employing journeymen, and
500_l._ to each of the larger masters.