In the Reports are no accounts of the duration of labour throughout the year, nor can I obtain from master-sweepers, who were in the business during the old mode, any sufficient data upon which to found any calculations. The employment, however, seems to have been generally continuous, running through the year, though in the course of the twelvemonth one master would have four and another six different journeymen, but only one at a time. The vagrant propensities of the class is a means of accounting for this.
The nominal wages of those journeymen who resided in their own apartments were generally 14s. a week, and their actual about 2s. 6d. extra in the form of perquisites. Others resided “on the premises,” having the care of the boys, with board and lodgings and 5s. a week in money nominally, and 7s. 6d. actually, the perquisites being worth 2s. 6d.
Concerning the general or average wages of the whole trade, I can only present the following computation.
Mr. Tooke, in his evidence before the House of Commons, stated that the Committee, of which he was a member, had ascertained that one boy on an average swept about four chimneys daily, at prices varying from 6d. to 1s. 6d., or a medium return of about 10d. per chimney, exclusive of the soot, then worth 8d. or 9d. a bushel. “It appears,” he said, “from a datum I have here, that those chimney-sweepers who keep six boys (the greatest number allowed by law) gain, on an average, nearly 270l.; five boys, 225l.; four boys, 180l.; three boys, 135l.; two boys, 90l.; and one boy 45l. (yearly), exclusive of the soot, which is, I should suppose, upon an average, from half a bushel to a bushel every time the chimney is swept.”
“Out of the profits you mention,” he was then asked, “the master has to maintain the boys?”—“Yes,” was the answer, “and when the expenses of house and cellar rent, and the wages of journeymen, and the maintenance of apprentices, are taken into the account, the number of master chimney-sweepers is not only more than the trade will support, but exceeds, by above one-third, what the public exigency requires. The Committee also ascertained that the 200 master chimney-sweepers in the metropolis were supposed to have in their employment 150 journeymen and 500 boys.”
The matter may be reduced to a tabular form, expressing the amount in money—for it is not asserted that the masters generally gained on the charge for their journeymen’s board and lodging—as follows:—
Expenditure of Master Chimney-Sweepers under the Climbing-Boy System.
| Yearly. | |
| 20 journeymen at individual wages, 14s. each weekly | £780 |
| 30 ditto, say 12s. weekly | 936 |
| 100 ditto, 10s. ditto | 2,600 |
| Board, Lodging, and Clothing of 500 boys, 4s. 6d. weekly | 5,850 |
| Rent, 20 large traders, 10s. | 520 |
| Do. 30 others, 7s. | 546 |
| Do. 150 do., 3s. 6d. | 1,365 |
| 20 horses (keep), 10s. | 520 |
| General wear and tear | 200 |
| £13,317 |
It appears that about 180 of the master chimney-sweepers were themselves working men, in the same way as their journeymen.
The following, then, may be taken as the—