AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
[February, 
68 
THE LITTLE CHIMNEY SWEEPER. — Engraved for the American Agriculturist. 
be sure that, they were not very handsome to look at 
They were generally colored people, but if white persons 
followed the business, they were so blackened with soot, 
that it was not east to tell them irorn the black sweeps. 
Early in the morning the streets would ring with their 
cries. The fellows had strong voices, and they would 
emp rather than shout, ” Sweep O. Sweep O. From 
the bottom to the top, sweep O-o-o-o ’ But when the 
people in the cities gave up burning wood, and used coal 
instead, the trade of the sweeps was spoiled, and their 
song is now rarely heard—though it is now and then, as 
there ari still a tew old-fashioned people who prefer to 
burn wood—enough ir. a large city like New York, to 
give employment, to here and there a sweep. The use of 
coai in piace of wood for cooking and warming houses, 
was a great improvement—and a great blessing too. for 
if ail burned wood now. as they did 50 years ago, it is 
difficult tc. see where enough wood could have been 
found, and it would now be a very costly article. The 
houses of our grand-parents were. a*, best, but poorly 
heated by wood fires, and coai not only brought an in¬ 
crease of comfort, but much labor of sawing, splitting, 
and bringing in wood and keeping the fire in good or¬ 
der was saved. But the coming in of coal brought a 
greater blessing than either or all of these—at least to a 
few — it broke up the trade of the sweeps. You may 
think it was a blessing to stop them because they were 
so dirty and noisy, but that is not it. The trade was a 
bad one, sometimes a wicked one, in the abuse of little 
boys. Some machines were invented, which allowed the 
sweeping of chimneys to be done by men only, but most 
of the sweeps stuck to the old plan, and had a boy to 
climb up on the inside of the chimney, and scrape away 
the soot from its sides. How many of you boys from six 
to twelve years old would like such a life as that ? Just 
think how dismal it must have been for these poor little 
fellows to climb up, at the risk of their lives, the long, 
black, dark chimney, with the soot filling the air and 
making it difficult to breathe I But before we say any 
more about our little friend, the sweep, let us say some¬ 
thing about chimneys. You must know that people had 
fires in their homes long before they had chimneys. How 
very uncomfortable it must have been to have a fire in 
the middle of the room, and a hole in the ceiling above 
for the smoke to go out of, and the rain to come in at. 
Yet this was the way in which those who, 500 years ago, 
lived in the grand old castles, managed their fires. We 
read about the great wealth and splendor of the old 
barons, with hundreds of followers, but they did not live 
half so comfortably as the day laborer does now-a-days. 
The first chimneys were not made like ours ; the stone 
walls of the big bonses and castles were very thick, and 
a fire-place was made in the wall, with a passage in the 
wall for the smoke, which found its way to the open air 
through a hole in the side of the building. After a while 
chimneys, much such as we have now, were built. Where 
wood is burned, some of the matters that are formed in 
the burning condense on the sides of the chimney, that 
is, they cool and harden there, and this forms what is 
called soot , which in time,would gather in such quantities 
as to check, if it did not stop the draft. Besides this, as 
already stated, the soot will burn, and a “ chimney on 
fire,' 1 as it is called, is a dangerous affair in a dry time. 
There were two ways of getting rid of the soot, one was 
to burn it out; taking a wet day, when there was no dan¬ 
ger of setting the roofs on fire. A lot of straw or shavings 
were put into the chimney and set on fire, and the soot 
burned out. Another way was to have the chimney 
swept. Chimneys at first were built very large, but as 
room became valuable, they were made smaller, and 
mostly the flues were so small that only a boy could work 
his way through them. For many years, in Englard, the 
homeless pauper boys were apprenticed to chimney 
sweepers, and it would be a sad story if the sufferings 
of these poor little creatures could he told. Living in 
dirt, and breathing soot, they were subject to peculiar 
diseases, and one known as the “ chimney sweep's can¬ 
cer,” was very fatal. But let us be glad that the law has 
put a stop to this abuse, and that in England, at least, 
this wretched use of boys is no longer allowed. Hard, 
or anthracite, coal is used in all the towns and cities on 
the Atlantic coast; this makes no soot, but where the 
soft or bituminous coal is used, as it is west of the Alle- 
ghanies and in Europe, the chimneys get foul and must 
be swept. There is, however, no more need of employing 
boys to scrupe the chimneys, as there are now contri¬ 
vances by which the sweeping may be done without them. 
