Thus we find that the constant or average casual wages of the several classes of operative chimney-sweepers may be taken as follows:—
| s. | d. | |
| Journeymen without board and lodging, and with perquisites averaging 2s. a week | 12 | 6 |
| Journeymen with board and lodging and 2s. a week perquisites | 9 | 10½ |
| Foreman, without board and lodging, at 2s. 6d. a week perquisites | 15 | 7 |
| Boys, with board and lodging | 5 | 3 |
The general wages of the trade, including foreman, journeymen, and boys, and calculating the perquisites to average 2s. weekly, will be 10s. 6d. a week, the same as the cotton factory operatives.
But if 10,500l. be the income of the operatives, what do the employers receive who have to pay this sum?
The charge for sweeping one of the lofty chimneys in the public and official edifices, and in the great houses in the aristocratic streets and squares, is 2s. 6d. and 3s. 6d.
The chimneys of moderate-sized houses are swept at 1s. to 1s. 6d. each, and those of the poorer classes are charged generally 6d.; some, however, are swept at 3d. and 4d.; and when soot realized a higher price (some of the present master sweepers have sold it at 1s. a bushel), the chimneys of poor persons were swept by the poorer class of sweeps merely for the perquisite of the soot. This is sometimes done even now, but to a very small extent, by a sweeper, “on his own hook,” and in want of a job, but generally with an injunction to the person whose chimney has been cleansed on such easy terms, not to mention it, as it “couldn’t be made a practice on.”
Estimating the number of houses belonging to the wealthy classes of society to be 54,000, and these to be swept eight times a year, and the charge for sweeping to be 2s. 6d. each time; and the number of houses belonging to the middle classes to be 90,000, and each to be swept four times a year, at 1s. 6d. each time; and the dwellings of the poor and labouring classes to be swept once a year at 6d. each time, and the number of such dwellings to be 165,000, we find that the total sum paid to the master chimney-sweepers of London is, in round numbers, 85,000l.
The sum obtained for 800,000 bushels of soot collected by the master-sweepers from the houses of London, at 5d. per bushel, is 16,500l.
Thus the total annual income of the master-sweepers of London is 100,000l.