Having been in such a situation, and subjected to such treatment as this, and perfectly naked, for thirteen hours, it is needless to say that he was in a most pitiable condition.
He was washed in warm water, when several excoriations were discovered on his back and shoulders, and the skin rubbed off his ears; his head was also sadly bruised. After being taken home, a surgeon was sent for, and, it is stated with surprise, that though very ill, his life was not considered in danger. A vain attempt to rebut this account was made by the son of the proprietor of the Talbot Inn, in a letter to Wm. Bulphin, a chimney-sweeper of Bristol, which letter is only worthy of notice as containing an unintentional comment on the oft-told tale, that children are required for examining and repairing defects in chimneys, and which was so pertinaciously insisted on in the evidence before the Committee of the House of Lords in 1834: it is as follows:—“The foreman says, had he gone up as he ought to have done, with one arm up and the other down, no accident could have happened; instead of which both arms were DOWN.” Every one must see the utter impossibility of a boy doing any thing in a chimney in the way of examination or repairs, in a space 9 inches square, or 9 by 14, and when the utmost skill is required to enable him to slide up and to slide down again. This accident has led to the benevolent formation of an Auxiliary Society in Gloucester, that city having been anxious to wipe away the disgrace occasioned by such a painful occurrence.
In March last, a poor little chimney-sweeper had the following providential escape, at the Luke’s Head, Mercer-street, Long Acre:—It appears that the child had got into the chimney-pot to clean it, and that his weight loosened the mortar by which it had been secured; and the boy and the chimney-pot rolled down the roof of the house together. Happily there was a sufficient height of parapet to save the child, and he was taken up from the gutter, without any harm having befallen him.
The most appalling feature connected with the subject of chimney-sweeping is the frequency of the chimney-sweeper’s cancer.
Immense pains are taken by the trade to conceal this grievous fact. No chimney-sweeper has even seen a single instance of it. The idea of such a calamity originates and ends in the clouded imaginations of your Committee.
It may be well, however, to say, that four cases occurred in one ward of one hospital within eight months of the past year, and that three of the cases were fatal.
About this time another chimney-sweeper died of the same disease at St. George’s Hospital. This was succeeded by the death of Price, a chimney-sweeper, in Stafford’s-ward, at the Middlesex Hospital.
A fresh case is now under the observation of one of your Committee, which cancer has been upon the poor sufferer for thirteen years. He was asked several questions, and particularly whether he had been kept very dirty as a child. His answers were as follow:—“No children could be kept cleaner.” “I believe it to arise from drawing in the soot with the breath in foul chimneys, for no cap will keep it out.” “I have been in great pain for years, but now it has quite mastered me.” “The surgeons talk of the cutting business.”
Another victim has also been seen this year by the same person in a fifth hospital. This poor fellow has been afflicted three years. Conversing with him on the unwillingness of the trade to work the machine, it was said, “I believe the secret of the opposition arises from its being so much easier to sit down and gossip with the servants while the child is doing the work;” the poor fellow raised himself a little from his bed, and exclaimed with great emphasis, “You have just hit it, sir.”
Since these men were seen, another poor creature has been visited at his own house by one of your Society. He is a man of thirty years of age, and has had this affliction upon him for five years, and it has made such ravages upon his frame, as to prevent his ever obtaining an easy position for a single moment, and he may be seen for hours in an afternoon, walking up and down the miserable court in which he lives, in perfect agony. He was urged to go into the hospital, and a ticket was offered him, but the dread of the surgeon’s knife has hitherto deterred him.