I am informed, however, by the secretary of the north-west district institution, that in some weeks of the summer 80 chimney-sweepers bathed there; always having, he believed, warm baths, which are more effective in removing soot or dirt from the skin than cold. Summer, it must be remembered, is the sweep’s “brisk” season. In a winter week as few as 25 or 20 have bathed, but the weekly average of sweeper-bathers, the year through, is about 50; and the number of sweeper-bathers, he thought, had increased since the opening of the baths about 10 per cent. yearly. As in 1850 the average number of bathers of all classes did not exceed 1646 per week, the proportion of sweepers, 50, is high. The number of female bathers is about one-ninth, so that the males would be about 1480; and the 50 sweepers a week constitute about a thirtieth part of the whole of the third-class bathers. The number of sweep-bathers was known because a sweep is known by his appearance.
I was told by the secretary that the sweepers, the majority bathing on Saturday nights, usually carried a bundle to the bath; this contained their “clean things.” After bathing they assumed their “Sunday clothes;” and from the change in their appearance between ingress and egress, they were hardly recognisable as the same individuals.
In the other baths, where also there is no specification of the bathers, I am told, that of sweepers bathing the number (on computation) is 30 at Marylebone, 25 at Goulston-street, and 15 (at the least) at St. Martin’s, as a weekly average. In all, 120 sweepers bathe weekly, or about a seventh of the entire working body. The increase at the three baths last mentioned, in sweepers bathing, is from 5 to 10 per cent.
Among the lower-class sweepers there are but few who wash themselves even once throughout the year. They eat, drink, and sleep in the same state of filth and dirt as when engaged in their daily avocation. Others, however, among the better class are more cleanly in their habits, and wash themselves every night.
Between the appearance of the sweepers in the streets at the present time and before the abolition of the system of climbing there is a marked difference. Charles Lamb said (in 1823):—
“I like to meet a sweep—understand me, not a grown sweeper—old chimney-sweepers are by no means attractive—but one of those tender novices blooming through their first nigritude, the maternal washings not quite effaced from the cheek—such as come forth with the dawn, or somewhat earlier, with their little professional notes sounding like the peep peep of a young sparrow; or liker to the matin lark should I pronounce them, in their aerial ascents not seldom anticipating the sunrise?”
Throughout his essay, Elia throws the halo of poetry over the child-sweepers, calling them “dim specks,” “poor blots,” “innocent blacknesses,” “young Africans of our own growth;” the natural kindliness of the writer shines out through all. He counsels his reader to give the young innocent 2d., or, if the weather were starving, “let the demand on thy humanity rise to a tester” (6d.).
The appearance of the little children-sweepers, as they trotted along at the master’s or the journeyman’s heels, or waited at “rich men’s doors” on a cold morning, was pitiable in the extreme. If it snowed, there was a strange contrast between the black sootiness of the sweeper’s dress and the white flakes of snow which adhered to it. The boy-sweeper trotted listlessly along; a sack to contain the soot thrown over his shoulder, or disposed round his neck, like a cape or shawl. One master sweeper tells me that in his apprenticeship days he had to wait at the great mansions in and about Grosvenor-square, on some bitter wintry mornings, until he felt as if his feet, although he had both stockings and shoes—and many young climbers were barefoot—felt as if frozen to the pavement. When the door was opened, he told me, the matter was not really mended. The rooms were often large and cold, and being lighted only with a candle or two, no doubt looked very dreary, while there was not a fire in the whole house, and no one up but a yawning servant or two, often very cross at having been disturbed. The servants, however, in noblemen’s houses, he also told me, were frequently kind to him, giving him bread and butter, and sometimes bread and jam; and as his master generally had a glass of raw spirit handed to him, the boy usually had a sip when his employer had “knocked off his glass.” His employer, indeed, sometimes said, “O, he’s better without it; it’ll only larn him to drink, like it did me;” but the servant usually answered, “O, here, just a thimblefull for him.”
The usual dress of the climbing-boy—as I have learned from those who had worn it themselves, and, when masters, had provided it for their boys—was made of a sort of strong flannel, which many years ago was called chimney-sweepers’ cloth; but my informant was not certain whether this was a common name for it or not, he only remembered having heard it called so. He remembered, also, accompanying his master to do something to the flues in a church, then (1817) hung with black cloth, as a part of the national mourning for the Princess Charlotte of Wales, and he thought it seemed very like the chimney-sweepers’ cloth, which was dark coloured when new. The child-sweep wore a pair of cloth trowsers, and over that a sort of tunic, or tight fitting shirt with sleeves; sometimes a little waistcoat and jacket. This, it must be borne in mind, was only the practice among the best masters (who always had to find their apprentices in clothes); and was the practice among them more and more in the later period of the climbing process, for householders began to inquire as to what sort of trim the boys employed on their premises appeared in. The poorer or the less well-disposed masters clad the urchins who climbed for them in any old rags which their wives could piece together, or in any low-priced garment “picked up” in such places as Rosemary-lane. The fit was no object at all. These ill-clad lads were, moreover, at one time the great majority. The clothes were usually made “at home” by the women, and in the same style, as regarded the seams, &c., as the sacks for soot; but sometimes the work was beyond the art of the sweeper’s wife, and then the aid of some poor neighbour better skilled in the use of her scissors and needle, or of some poor tailor, was called in, on the well-known terms of “a shilling (or 1s. 6d.) a day, and the grub.”