Suppose, for instance, the “smoke nuisance” entirely prevented, and that Professor Faraday’s prophecy as to the great reduction of the smoke from coal fires in houses were fulfilled, and that the expectations of the sanguine and intense Committee, who tell us that they have “received the most gratifying assurances of the confident hope entertained by several of the highest scientific authorities, that the black smoke proceeding from fires in private dwellings and all other places may be eventually entirely prevented,”—suppose that these expectations, I say, be realized (and there appears to be little doubt of the matter), what is to become of the 1000 to 1500 “sweeps” who live, as it were, upon this very smoke? Surely the whole community should not suffer for them, it will be said. True; but unfortunately the same argument is being applied to each particular section of the labouring class,—and the labourers make up by far the greater part of the community. If we are daily displacing a thousand labourers by the annihilation of this process, and another thousand by the improvement of that, what is to be the fate of those we put on one side? and where shall we find employment for the hundred thousand new “hands” that are daily coming into existence among us? This is the great problem for earnest thoughtful men to work out!
But we have to deal here with the chimney-sweepers as they are, and not as they may be in a more scientific age. And, first, as to the quantity of soot annually deposited at present in the London chimneys.
The quantity of soot produced in the metropolis every year may be ascertained in the following manner:—
The larger houses are swept in some instances once a month, but generally once in three months, and yield on an average six bushels of soot per year. A moderate-sized house, belonging to the “middle class,” is usually swept four times a year, and gives about five bushels of soot per annum; while houses occupied by the working and poorer classes are seldom swept more than twice, and sometimes only once, in the twelvemonth, and yield about two bushels of soot annually.
The larger houses—the residences of noblemen and the more wealthy gentry—may, then, be said to produce an average of six bushels of soot annually; the houses of the more prosperous tradesmen, about five bushels; while those of the humbler classes appear to yield only two bushels of soot per annum. There are, according to the last returns, in round numbers, 300,000 inhabited houses at present in the metropolis, and these, from the “reports” of the income and property tax, may be said to consist, as regards the average rentals, of the proportions given in the next page.
TABLE SHOWING THE NUMBER OF HOUSES, AT DIFFERENT AVERAGE RENTALS, THROUGHOUT THE METROPOLIS.
| Number of Houses whose Average Rental is above £50. | Number of Houses whose Average Rental is above £30 and below £50. | Number of Houses whose Average Rental is below £30. | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average Rental. | Number of Houses. | Average Rental. | Number of Houses. | Average Rental. | Number of Houses. | |||
| £ | £ | £ | ||||||
| Hanover-square, May Fair | 150 | 8,795 | Poplar | 44 | 6,882 | Chelsea | 29 | 7,629 |
| St. James’s | 128 | 3,460 | Pancras | 41 | 18,731 | Wandsworth | 29 | 8,290 |
| St. Martin’s | 119 | 2,323 | Hampstead | 40 | 1,719 | St. Luke’s | 28 | 6,421 |
| London City | 117 | 7,329 | Kensington | 40 | 17,292 | Lambeth | 28 | 20,520 |
| Marylebone | 71 | 15,955 | Clerkenwell | 38 | 7,259 | Lewisham | 27 | 5,936 |
| Strand | 66 | 3,938 | East London | 38 | 4,785 | Whitechapel | 26 | 8,832 |
| West London | 65 | 2,745 | St. Saviour’s | 36 | 4,613 | Hackney | 25 | 9,861 |
| St. Giles’s | 60 | 4,778 | Westminster | 36 | 6,647 | Camberwell | 25 | 9,417 |
| Holborn | 52 | 4,517 | St. Olave’s | 35 | 2,365 | Rotherhithe | 23 | 2,834 |
| 53,840 | Islington | 35 | 13,558 | St. George’s, Southwark | 22 | 7,005 | ||
| St. George’s-in-the-East | 32 | 6,151 | Newington | 22 | 10,468 | |||
| 90,002 | Greenwich | 22 | 14,423 | |||||
| Shoreditch | 20 | 15,433 | ||||||
| Stepney | 20 | 16,346 | ||||||
| Bermondsey | 18 | 7,095 | ||||||
| Bethnal Green | 9 | 13,370 | ||||||
| 163,880 | ||||||||
Here we see that the number of houses whose average rental is above 50l. is 53,840; while those whose average rental is above 30l., and below 50l., are 90,002 in number; and those whose rental is below 30l. are as many as 163,880; the average rental for all London, 40l. Now, adopting the estimate before given as to the proportionate yield of soot from each of these three classes of houses, we have the following items:—
| Bushels of Soot per Annum. | |
|---|---|
| 53,840 houses at a yearly rental above 50l., producing 6 bushels of soot each per annum | 323,040 |
| 90,002 houses at a yearly rental above 30l. and below 50l., producing 5 bushels of soot each per annum | 450,010 |
| 163,880 houses at a yearly rental below 30l., producing 2 bushels of soot each per annum | 327,760 |
| Total number of bushels of soot annually produced throughout London | 1,100,810 |