92 
north. I will just read it. Those of you who know “ Nicholas 
Nickleby” well, will recognise it at once, as almost word for word 
the advertisement of Mr. Squeers. I omit the names. 
‘© EDUCATION.—By Mr. mE Academy, near Barnard Castle, 
Durham, youth are carefully instructed in the English, Latin, and Greek 
languages, writing, common and decimal arithmetic, book-keeping, mensur- 
ation, surveying, geometry, geography, and navigation, with the most useful 
branches of the mathematics, and provided with board, clothes, and every 
necessary, at 20 guineas per annum each. No extra charges. No vacations. 
Further particulars may be known on application to Mr. 
Marylebone Street. Mr. 
from 12 to 2, daily.” 
, agent, — Great 
attends at the George and Blue Boar, Holborn, 
I must turn now to a more important change still. I mean the 
change in the social condition of the poor. But as to this, I must 
have recourse to the memory and the writings of others; for 
naturally a child or a little schoolboy (as I was then) would not 
concern himself greatly with such matters. Thus, I do not 
remember to have heard much, at the time, of the sufferings of the 
children employed in mines, or of the efforts made for their relief 
by Lord Shaftesbury, to whom chiefly the nation owes its deliver- 
ance from that crying sin. But I have a vivid recollection of the 
chimney sweeps of those days—boys, sometimes stolen for the 
purpose as children*—more often sold by their parents; and 
driven by their masters to climb up chimneys; beaten if they 
would not or could not go up—fires lighted underneath to smoke 
them out, if they would not come down again—backs and elbows 
and knees bruised and torn by the bricks in climbing—half-starved 
—left unwashed, though the neglect of this in their occupation 
brought on a dreadful disease. And yet, whatever philanthropists 
might say, it was impossible to persuade people to have their 
chimneys swept by machines. Happily after a time the employ- 
ment of these boys was forbidden by law. 
As to the state of the pauper, or the criminal class, let me once 
*T knew very well in later years an old man who had been so stolen, and who 
was I believe the original of the Sweep in Charles Kingsley’s ‘‘ Waterbaby.” 
