Mr. J. Harding, a master sweeper, had a fellow apprentice who had been enticed away from his parents. “It is a case of common occurrence,” he said, “for children stolen, to be employed in this way. Yes, and children in particular are enticed out of workhouses: there are a great many who come out of workhouses.”
The following cases were also submitted to the Committee:—
“A poor woman had been obliged by sickness to go into an hospital, and while she was there her child was stolen from her house, taken into Staffordshire, and there apprenticed to a chimney-sweeper. By some happy circumstance she learned his fate; she followed him, and succeeded in rescuing him from his forlorn situation. Another child, who was an orphan, was tricked into following the same wretched employment by a chimney-sweeper, who gave him a shilling, and made him believe that by receiving it he became his apprentice; the poor boy, either discovering or suspecting that he had been deceived, anxiously endeavoured to speak to a magistrate who happened to come to the house in which he was sweeping chimneys, but his master watched him so closely that he could not succeed. He at last contrived to tell his story to a blind soldier, who determined to right the poor boy, and by great exertions succeeded in procuring him his liberty.”
It was in country places, however, that the stealing and kidnapping of children was the most frequent, and the threat of “the sweeps will get you” was often held out, to deter children from wandering. These stolen infants, it is stated, were usually conveyed to some distance by the vagrants who had secured them, and sold to some master sweeper, being apprenticed as the child of the vendors, for it was difficult for sweepers in thinly-peopled places to get a supply of climbing boys. It was shown about the time of the Parliamentary inquiry, in the course of a trial at the Lancaster assizes, that a boy had been apprenticed to a sweeper by two travelling tinkers, man and woman, who informed him that the child was stolen from another “traveller,” 80 miles away, who was “too fond of it to make it a sweep.” The price of the child was not mentioned.
Respecting the sale of children to be apprentices to sweepers, Mr. Tooke was able to state that, although in 1816, the practice had very much diminished of late, parents in many instances still sold their children for three, four, or five guineas. This sum was generally paid under the guise of an apprentice fee, but it was known to be and was called a “sale,” for the parents, real or nominal, never interfered with the master subsequently, but left the infant to its fate.
2. I find the following account of the means resorted to, in order to induce, or more frequently compel, these wretched infants to work.
The boy in the first instance went for a month, or any term agreed upon, “on trial,” or “to see how he would suit for the business.” During this period of probation he was usually well treated and well fed (whatever the character of the master), with little to do beyond running errands, and observing the mode of work of the experienced climbers. When, however, he was “bound” as an apprentice, he was put with another lad who had been for some time at the business. The new boy was sent first up the chimney, and immediately followed by the other, who instructed him how to ascend. This was accomplished by the pressure of the knees and the elbows against the sides of the flue. By pressing the knees tightly the child managed to raise his arms somewhat higher, and then by pressing his elbows in like manner he contrived to draw up his legs, and so on. The inside of the flue presented a smooth surface, and there were no inequalities where the fingers or toes could be inserted. Should the young beginner fall, he was sure to light on the shoulders of the boy beneath him, who always kept himself firmly fixed in expectation of such a mishap, and then the novice had to commence anew; in this manner the twain reached the top by degrees, sweeping down the soot, and descended by the same method. This practice was very severe, especially on new boys, whose knees and elbows were torn by the pressure and the slipping down continually—the skin being stripped off, and frequently breaking out in frightful sores, from the constant abrasions, and from the soot and dirt getting into them.
In his evidence before Parliament in 1817 (for there had been previous inquiries), Mr. Cook gave an account of the training of these boys, and on being asked:—“Do the elbows and knees of the boys, when they first begin the business, become very sore, and afterwards get callous, and are those boys employed in sweeping chimneys during the soreness of those parts?” answered, “It depends upon the sort of master they have got; some are obliged to put them to work sooner than others; you must keep them a little at it, or they will never learn their business, even during the sores.” He stated further, that the skin broke generally, and that the boys could not ascend chimneys during the sores without very great pain. “The way that I learn boys is,” he continued, “to put some cloths over their elbows and over their knees till they get the nature of the chimney—till they get a little used to it: we call it padding them, and then we take them off, and they get very little grazed indeed after they have got the art; but very few will take that trouble. Some boys’ flesh is far worse than others, and it takes more time to harden them.” He was then asked:—“Do those persons still continue to employ them to climb chimneys?” and the answer was: “Some do; it depends upon the character of the master. None of them of that class keep them till they get well; none. They are obliged to climb with those sores upon them. I never had one of my own apprentices do that.” This system of padding, however, was but little practised; but in what proportion it was practised, unless by the respectable masters, who were then but few in number, the Parliamentary papers, the only information on the subject now attainable, do not state. The inference is, that the majority, out of but 20 of these masters, with some 80 or 100 apprentices, did treat them well, and what was so accounted. The customary way of training these boys, then, was such as I have described; some even of the better masters, whose boys were in the comparison well lodged and fed, and “sent to the Sunday school” (which seems to have comprised all needful education), considered “padding and such like” to be “new-fangled nonsense.”
I may add also, that although the boy carried up a brush with him, it was used but occasionally, only when there were “turns” or defects in the chimney, the soot being brought down by the action of the shoulders and limbs. The climber wore a cap to protect his eyes and mouth from the soot, and a sort of flannel tunic, his feet, legs, and arms being bare. Some of these lads were surprisingly quick. One man told me that, when in his prime as a climbing boy, he could reach the top of a chimney about as quickly as a person could go up stairs to the attics.
The following is from the evidence of Mr. Cook, frequently cited as an excellent master:—