Of the “Ramoneur” Company.
The Patent Ramoneur Company demands, perhaps, a special notice. It was formed between four and five years ago, and has now four stations: one in Little Harcourt-street, Bryanstone-square; another in New-road, Sloane-street; a third in Charles-place, Euston-square; and the fourth in William-street, Portland-town.
“This Company has been formed,” the prospectus stated, “for the purpose of cleansing chimneys with the Patent Ramoneur Machine, and introducing various other improvements in the business of chimney sweeping. Chimneys are daily swept with this machine where others have failed.”
The Company charge the usual prices, and all the men employed have been brought up as sweepers. The patent machine is thus described:—
“The Patent Ramoneur Machine consists of four brushes, forming a square head, which, by means of elastic springs, contracts or expands, according to the space it moves in; the rods attached to this head or brush are supplied at intervals with a universal spring-joint, capable of turning even a right angle, and the whole is surmounted with a double revolving ball, having also a universal spring-joint, which leads the brush with certainty into every corner, cleansing its route most perfectly.”
The recommendation held out to the public is, that the patented chimney-machine sweeps cleaner than that in general use, and for the reasons assigned; and that, being constructed with more and better springs, it is capable of “turning even a right angle,” which the common machine often leaves unswept. This was and is commonly said of the difference between the cleansing of the chimney by a climbing-boy and that effected by the present mechanical appliances in general use—the boy was “better round a corner.”
The patent machines now worked in London are fifteen in number, and fifteen men are thus employed. Each man receives as a weekly wage, always in money, 14s., besides a suit of clothes yearly. The suit consists of a jacket, waistcoat, and trousers, of dark-coloured corduroy; also a “frock” or blouse, to wear when at work, and a cap; the whole being worth from 35s. to 40s. This payment is about equivalent to that received weekly by the journeymen in the regular or honourable trade; for although higher in nominal amount as a weekly remuneration, the Ramoneur operatives are not allowed any perquisites whatever. The resident or manager at each station is also a working chimney-sweeper for the Company, and at the same rate as the others, his advantage being that he lives rent-free. At one station which I visited, the resident had two comfortable-looking up-stairs’-rooms (the stations being all in small streets), where he and his wife lived; while the “cellar,” which was indeed but the ground floor, although somewhat lower than the doorstep, was devoted to business purposes, the soot being stored there. It was boarded off into separate compartments, one being at the time quite full of soot. All seemed as clean and orderly as possible. The rent of those two rooms, unfurnished, would not be less than 4s. or 5s. a week, so that the resident’s payment may be put at about 50l. a year. The patent-machine operatives sweep, on an average, the same number of chimneys each, as a master chimney-sweeper’s men in a good way of business in the ordinary trade.
Of the Brisk and Slack Seasons, and the Casual Trade among the Chimney-Sweepers.
As among the rubbish-carters in the unskilled, and the tailors and shoemakers of the skilled trades, the sweepers’ trade also has its slackness and its briskness, and from the same cause—the difference in the seasons. The seasons affecting the sweepers’ trade are, however, the natural seasons of the year, the recurring summer and winter, while the seasons influencing the employment of West-end tailors are the arbitrary seasons of fashion.
The chimney-sweepers’ brisk season is in the winter, and especially at what may be in the respective households the periods of the resumption and discontinuance of sitting-room fires.