Out of this 100,000l. per annum, the expenses of the masters would appear to be as follows:—
Yearly Expenditure of the Master-Sweepers.
| Sum paid in wages to 473 journeymen | £10,500 |
| Rent, &c., of 350 houses or lodgings, at 12l. yearly each | 4,200 |
| Wear and tear of 1000 machines, 1l. each yearly | 1,000 |
| Ditto 2000 sacks, at 1s. each yearly | 100 |
| Keep of 25 horses, 7s. weekly each | 455 |
| Wear and tear of 25 carts and harness, 1l. each | 25 |
| Interest on capital at 10 per cent. | 450 |
| Total yearly expenditure of master-sweepers employing journeymen | £16,736 |
The rent here given may seem low at 12l. a year, but many of the chimney-sweepers live in parlours, with cellars below, in old out-of-the-way places, at a low rental, in Stepney, Shadwell, Wapping, Bethnal-green, Hoxton, Lock’s-fields, Walworth, Newington, Islington, Somers-town, Paddington, &c. The better sort of master-sweepers at the West-end often live in a mews.
The gains, then, of the master sweepers are as under:—
| Annual income for cleansing chimneys and soot | £100,000 |
| Expenditure for wages, rent, wear, and tear, keep of horses, &c., say | 20,000 |
| Annual profit of master chimney-sweepers of London | £80,000 |
This amount of profit, divided among 350 masters, gives about 230l. per annum to each individual; it is only by a few, however, that such a sum is realized, as in the 100,000l. paid by the London public to the sweepers’ trade, is included the sum received by the men who work single-handed, “on their own hook,” as they say, employing no journeymen. Of these men’s earnings, the accounts I heard from themselves and the other master sweepers were all accordant, that they barely made journeymen’s wages. They have the very worst-paid portion of the trade, receiving neither for their sweeping nor their soot the prices obtained by the better masters; indeed they very frequently sell their soot to their more prosperous brethren. Their general statement is, that they make “eighteen pence a day, and all told.” Their receipts then, and they have no perquisites as have the journeymen, are, in a slack time, about 1s. a day (and some days they do not get a job); but in the winter they are busier, as it is then that sweepers are employed by the poor; and at that period the “master-men” may make from 15s. to 20s. a week each; so that, I am assured, the average of their weekly takings may be estimated at 12s. 6d.
Now, deducting the expenditure from the receipts of 100,000l. (for sweeping and soot), the balance, as we have seen, is 80,000l., an amount of profit which, if equally divided among the three classes of the trade, will give the following sums:—
| Yearly, each. | Yearly, total. | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| £ | s. | £ | |
| Profits of 150 single-handed master-men | 32 | 10 | 4,940 |
| Do. 92 small masters | 200 | 0 | 18,400 |
| Do. 106 large masters | 500 | 0 | 53,000 |
| £76,340 | |||
Nor is this estimate of the masters’ profits, I am assured, extravagant. One of the smaller sweepers, but a prosperous man in his way, told me that he knew a master sweeper who was “as rich as Crœser, had bought houses, and could not write his own name.”