The sweeping of the flues in the boilers of steam-boats, in the Port
of London, and also of land boilers in manufactories, is altogether
a distinct process, as the machine cannot be used until such time
as the parties who are engaged in this business travel a long way
through the flues, and reach the lower part of the chimney or funnel
where it communicates with the boilers and receives the smoke in its
passage to the upper air. The boilers in the large sea-going steamers
are of curious construction; in some large steamers there are four
separate boilers with three furnaces in each, the flues of each boiler
uniting in one beneath the funnel; immediately beyond the end of the
furnace, which is marked by a little wall constructed of firebrick to
prevent the coals and fire from running off the firebars, there is a
large open space very high and wide, and which space after a month’s
steaming is generally filled up with soot, somewhat resembling a snow
drift collected in a hollow, were it not for its colour and the fact
that it is sometimes in a state of ignition; it is, at times, so
deep, that a man sinks to his middle in it the moment he steps across
the firebridge. Above his head, and immediately over the end of the
furnace, he may perceive an opening in what otherwise would appear to
be a solid mass of iron; up to this opening, which resembles a doorway,
the sweeper must clamber the best way he can, and when he succeeds in
this he finds himself in a narrow passage completely dark, but with so
strong a current of air rushing through it from the furnaces beneath
towards the funnel overhead that it is with difficulty the wick lamp
which he carries in his hand can be kept burning. This passage, between
the iron walls on either side, is lofty enough for a tall man to stand
upright in, but does not seem at first of any great extent; as he
goes on, however, to what appears the end, he finds out his mistake,
by coming to a sharp turn which conducts him back again towards the
open space in the centre of the boiler, but which is now hid from him
by the hollow iron walls which on every side surround him, and within
which the waters boil and seethe as the living flames issuing from the
furnaces rush and roar through these winding passages; another sharp
turn leads back to the front of the boilers, and so on for seven or
eight turns, backwards and forwards, like the windings in a maze, till
at the last turn a light suddenly breaks upon him, and, looking up,
he perceives the hollow tube of the funnel, black and ragged with the
adhering soot.
Here, then, the labour of the sweeper commences: he is armed with a
brush and shovel, and laying down his lamp in a space from which he
has previously shovelled away the soot, which in many parts of the
passage is knee deep, he brushes down the soot from the sides and roof
of the passage, which being done he shovels it before him into the
next winding; this process he repeats till he reaches, by degrees, the
opening where he ascended. Whenever the accumulation of soot is so
great that it is likely to block up the passage in the progress of his
work, he wades through and shovels as much as he thinks necessary out
of the opening into the large space behind the furnaces, then resumes
his work, brushing and shovelling by turns, till the flues are cleared;
when this is accomplished, he descends, and the fire bars being
previously removed, he shovels the soot, now all collected together,
over the firebridge and into the ashpit of the furnace; other persons
stand ready in the stoke-hole armed with long iron rakes, with which
they drag out the soot from the ashpits; and others shovel it into
sacks, which they make fast to tackle secured to the upper deck, by
which they “bowse” it up out of the engine-room, and either discharge
it overboard or put it into boats preparatory to being taken ashore. In
this manner an immense quantity of soot is removed from the boilers of
a large foreign-going steamer when she gets into port, after a month or
six weeks’ steaming, having burned in that time perhaps 700 or 800 tons
of coal: this work is always performed by the stokers and coal-trimmers
in the foreign ports, who seldom, if ever, get anything extra for it,
although it is no uncommon thing for some of them to be ill for a week
after it.
In the port of London, however, the sweeper comes into requisition,
who, besides going through the process already described, brings his
machine with him, and is thus enabled to cleanse the funnel, and
to increase the quantity of soot. Some of the master sweepers, who
have the cleansing of the steam-boats in the river, and the sweeping
of boiler flues are obliged to employ a good many men, and make a
great deal of money by their business. The use of anthracite coals,
however, and some modern improvements, by which air at a certain
temperature is admitted to certain parts of the furnace, have in many
instances greatly lessened, if they have not altogether prevented,
the accumulation of soot, by the prevention of smoke; and it seems
quite possible, from the statements made by many eminent scientific
and practical men who were examined before a select committee of the
House of Commons, presided over by Mr. Mackinnon, in 1843, that by
having properly-constructed stoves, and a sufficient quantity of pure
air properly admitted, not only less fuel might be burned, and produce
a greater amount of heat, but soot would cease to accumulate, so that
the necessity for sweepers would be no longer felt, and there would be
no fear of fires from the ignition of soot in the flues of chimneys;
blacks and smoke, moreover, would take their departure together; and
with them the celebrated London fog might also, in a great measure,
disappear.
The funnels of steamers are generally swept at from 8_d._ to 1_s._
6_d._ per funnel. The Chelsea steamers are swept by Mr. Allbrook, of
Chelsea; the Continental, by Mr. Hawsey, of Rosemary-lane; and the
Irish and Scotch steamers, by Mr. Tuff, who resides in the East London
district.