The “knullers” or “queriers,” that is to say, those who solicit custom in an irregular manner, by knocking at the doors of houses and such like.
Of the competition of capitalists in this trade there are, I am told, no instances. “We have our own stations,” one master sweeper said, “and if I contract to sweep a genelman’s house, here in Pancras, for 25s. a year, or 10s., or anythink, my nearest neighbour, as has men and machines fit, is in Marrybun; and it wouldn’t pay to send his men a mile and a half, or on to two mile, and work at what I can—let alone less. No, sir, I’ve known bisness nigh 20 year, and there’s nothink in the way of that underworking. The poor creeturs as keeps theirselves with a machine, and nothing to give them a lift beyond it, they’d undertake work at any figure, but nobody employs or can trust to them, but on chance.” The contracts, I am told, for a year’s chimney-sweeping in any mansion are on the same terms with one master as with another.
As regards the Journeymen Chimney-Sweepers there are also three kinds:—
The “foreman” or “first journeyman” sweeper, who accompanies the men to their work, superintends their labours, and receives the money, when paid immediately after sweeping.
The “journeyman” sweeper, whose duty it is to work the machine, and (where no under-journeyman, or boy, is kept) to carry the machine and take home the soot.
The “under-journeyman” or “boy,” who has to carry the machine, take home the soot, and work the machine up the lower-class flues.
There are, besides these, some 20 climbing men, who ascend such flues as the machines cannot cleanse effectually, and, it must, I regret to say, be added, some 20 to 30 climbing boys, mostly under eleven years of age, who are still used for the same purpose “on the sly.” Many of the masters, indeed, lament the change to machine-sweeping, saying that their children, who are now useless, would, in “the good old times,” have been worth a pound a week to them. It is in the suburbs that these climbing children are mostly employed.
The hours of labour are from the earliest morning till about midday, and sometimes later.
There are no Houses of Call, trade societies, or regulations among these operatives, but there are low public-houses to which they resort, and where they can always be heard of.
When a chimney-sweeper is out of work he merely inquires of others in the same line of business, who, if they know of any one that wants a journeyman, direct their brother sweeper to call and see the master; but though the chimney-sweepers have no trade societies, some of the better class belong to sick, and others to burial, funds. The lower class of sweepers, however, seem to have no resource in sickness, or in their utmost need, but the parish. There are sweepers, I am told, in every workhouse in London.