There are three modes of payment common among the sweepers:—
- 1, in money;
- 2, partly in money and partly in kind; and
- 3, by perquisites.
The great majority of the masters pay the men they employ from 2s. to 3s., and a few 4s. and 6s. per week, together with their board and lodging. It may seem that 3s. per week is a small sum, but it was remarked to me that there are few working men who, after supporting themselves, are able to save that sum weekly, while the sweepers have many perquisites of one sort or other, which sometimes bring them in 1s., 2s., 3s., 4s., and occasionally 5s. or 6s., a week additional—a sufficient sum to pay for clothes and washing. The journeymen, when lodged in the house of the master, are single men, and if constantly employed might, perhaps, do well, but they are often unemployed, especially in the summer, when there are not so many fires kept burning. As soon as one of them gets married, or what among them is synonymous, “takes up with a woman,” which they commonly do when they are able to purchase some sort of a machine, they set up for themselves, and thus a great number of the men get to be masters on their own account, without being able to employ any extra hands. These are generally reckoned among the “knullers;” they do but little business at first, for the masters long established in a neighbourhood, who are known to the people, and have some standing, are almost always preferred to those who are strangers or mere beginners.
It was very common, but perhaps more common in country towns than in London, for the journeymen, as well as apprentices, in this and many other trades to live at the master’s table. But the board and lodging supplied, in lieu of money-wages, to the journeymen sweepers, seems to be one of the few existing instances of such a practice in London. Among slop-working tailors and shoemakers, some unfortunate workmen are boarded and lodged by their employers, but these employers are merely middlemen, who gain their living by serving such masters as “do not like to drive their negroes themselves.” But among the sweepers there are no middlemen.
It is not all the journeymen sweepers, however, who are remunerated after this manner, for many receive 12s., and some 14s., and not a few 18s. weekly, besides perquisites, but reside at their own homes.
Apprenticeship is now not at all common among the sweepers, as no training to the business is needed. Lord Shaftesbury, however, in July last, gave notice of his intention to bring in a bill to prevent persons who had not been duly apprenticed to the business establishing themselves as sweepers.
The Perquisites of the journeymen sweepers are for measuring, arranging, and putting the soot sold into the purchasers’ sacks, or carts; for this is considered extra work. The payment of this perquisite seems to be on no fixed scale, some having 1s. for 50, and some for 100 bushels. When a chimney is on fire and a journeyman sweeper is employed to extinguish it, he receives from 1s. 6d. to 5s. according to the extent of time consumed and the risk of being injured. “Chance sweeping,” or the sweeping of a chimney not belonging to a customer, when a journeyman has completed his regular round, ensures him 3d. in some employments, but in fewer than was once the case. The beer-money given by any customer to a journeyman is also his perquisite. Where a foreman is kept, the “brieze,” or cinders collected from the grate, belong to him, and the ashes belong to the journeyman; but where there is no foreman, the brieze and ashes belong to the journeyman solely. These they sell to the poor at the rate of 6d. a bushel. I am told by experienced men that, all these matters considered, it may be stated that one-half of the journeymen in London have perquisites of 1s. 6d., the other half of 2s. 6d. a week.
The Nominal Wages to the journeymen, then, are from 12s. to 18s. weekly, without board and lodging, or from 2s. to 6s. in money, with board and lodging, represented as equal to 7s.
The Actual Wages are 2s. 6d. a week more in the form of perquisites, and perhaps 4d. daily in beer or gin.
The wages to the boys are mostly 1s. a week, but many masters pay 1s. 6d. to 2s., with board and lodging. These boys have no perquisites, except such bits of broken victuals as are given to them at houses where they go to sweep.