: in being, respecting masters and that it is the custom of the trade apprentices, do not provide suffi. to take the parent's word for the cient regulations, so as to prevent age of the apprentice-that no various complicated miseries to other evidence is asked for-that which boys employed in climbing he never heard of its being the and cleansing of chimneys are practice of the masters to get a liable, beyond any other employ- certificate of the age, and he was ment whatsoever in which boys of ignorant that the act of parliament tender years are engaged and required it. Your committee rewhereas the misery of the said fer generally to the evidence for boys might be much alleviated, if proofs of the cruelties that are some legal powers and authorities practised, and of the ill-usage, were given for the regulation of and the peculiar hardships that are chimney-sweepers and their ap- the lot of the wretched children prentices."-This act, though it who are employed in this trade. It has in some respects fulfilled the is in evidence that they are stolen intention of the legislature, yet from their parents, and inveigled your committee have heard in evi- out of workhouses; that in order dence before them, that its prin- to conquer the natural repugnance cipal enacting clause, viz. the reof the infants to ascend the nargulating the age at which appren row and dangerous chimneys, to tices shall be taken, is constantly clean which their labour is requirevaded; and they are decidedly of ed, blows are used; that pins are opinion, that the various and com- forced into their feet by the boy plicated miseries to which the un- that follows them up the chimney, fortunate children are exposed, in order to compel them to ascend cannot be relieved by regulations. it; and that lighted straw has The 28th of Geo. II. enacts, been applied for that purpose; That no person shall employ any that the children are subject to boy, in the nature of an apprensores and bruises, and wounds tice or servant, under the age of and burns on their thighs, knees, eight years; yet your committee and elbows; and that it will rehave been informed, that infants quire many months before the exof the early ages of four, five and tremities of the elbows and knees six years, have been employed, it become sufficiently hard to resist being the practice for parents to the excoriations to which they are sell their children to this trade, at first subject; and that one of under-stating their age; besides, the masters being asked if those this clause is not considered by boys are employed in sweeping the master chimney-sweepers as chimneys during the soreness of prohibiting their employment of those parts, he answered, "It their own children; and instances depends upon the sort of master have been adduced before your they have got. Some are obliged committee, that have satisfied to put them to work sooner than them that such cases are by no others; you must keep them a means unfrequent. Your comlittle at it even during the sores, mittee have also heard, from one or they will never learn their of the master chimney-sweepers, business." Your committee are informed informed that the deformity of the spine, legs, arms, &c. of these boys, proceeds generally, if not wholly, from the circumstance of their being obliged to ascend chimneys at an age when their bones are in a soft and growing state; but likewise, by their being compelled to carry bags of soot and cloths, the weight of which sometimes exceed twenty or thirty pounds, not including the soot, the burthen of which they also occasionally bear for a great length of distance and time; the knees and ancle joints become deformed, in the first instance, from the position they are obliged to put them in, in order to support themselves, not only while climbing up the chinney, but more particularly so whilst coming down, when they rest solely on the lower extremities, the arms being used for scraping and sweeping down the soot. Your committee refer generally to the observation of every one as to the stinted growth, the deformed state of body, the look of wretchedness and disease which characterizes this unfortunate class; but it is in evidence before them, that there is a formidable complaint which chimney-sweepers in particular are liable to; from which circumstance, by way of distinction, it is called the Chimney-sweeper's Cancer. Mr. Wright, a surgeon, informed your committee, that whilst he was attending Guy's and Saint Bartholomew's Hospitals, he had several cases under his care, some of which were operated on; but in general they are apt to let them go too far before they apply for relief. Cancers of the lips are not so general as cancers of the scro tum; the witness never saw but two instances of the former, though several of the latter. Mr. Cline inforined your committee by letter, that this disease is rarely seen in any other persons than chimney-sweepers, and in them cannot be considered as frequent; for during his practice in St. Thomas's Hospital, for more than forty years, the number of those cases could not exceed twenty ; but your committee have been informed, that the dread of the operation which it is necessary to perform, deters many from submitting to it; and from the evidence of persons engaged in the trade, it appears to be much more common than Mr. Cline seems to be aware of. But it is not only the early and hard labour, the spare diet, wretched lodging, and harsh treatment, which is the lot of these children, but in general they are kept almost entirely destitute of education, and moral or religious instruction; they form a sort of class by themselves, and from their work being done early in the day, they are turned into the streets to pass their time in idleness and depravity: thus they become an easy prey to those whose occupation it is to delude the ignorant and entrap the unwary; and if their constitution is strong enough to resist the diseases and deformities which are the consequences of their trade, and that they should grow so much in stature as no longer to be useful in it, they are cast upon the world without any means of obtaining a livelihood, with no habits of industry, or rather, what too frequently happens, with confirmed habits of idleness and vice. In addition to which, it appears, that from the trade being constantly overstocked, a large proportion of the older chimney sweepers (as it is stated, one half) are constantly in a course of being thrown out of employ. Your committee have endeavoured to learn the number of persons who may be considered as engaged in the trade within the bills of mortality they have learnt that the total number of master chimney sweepers might be estimated at 200, who had among them 500 apprentices; that not above 20 of those masters were reputable tradesmen in easy circumstances, who appeared generally to conform to the provisions of the act, and which twenty had, upon an average, from four to five apprentices each; that about ninety were of an inferior class of master chimneysweepers, who had, upon an average, three apprentices each, and who were extremely negligent of their health, their morals, and their education; and that about ninety, the remainder of the 200 masters, were a class of chimney-sweepers recently journeymen, who took up the trade because they had no other resource-who picked up boys as they could-who lodged them with themselves in huts, sheds, and cellars, in the outskirts of the town, occasionally wandering into the villages round: and that in these two classes, being in the proportion of 180 to 20, the miseries of the trade were principally to be found. It is in evidence before your committee, that at Hadleigh, Barnet, Uxbridge, and Windsor, female children have been employed. in general among the most respectable part of the trade, the apprentices are of the age prescribed by the act, viz. from 8 to 14; but even among the most respectable it is the constant practice to borrow the younger boys from one another, for the purpose of sweeping what are called the narrow flues. No accurate account could be obtained of the ages of the apprentices of the other classes; but they had the youngest children, who either were their own, or engaged as apprentices; and who, in many instances, it was ascertained, were much below the prescribed age; thus, the youngest and most delicate children are in the service of the worst class of masters, and employed exclusively to clean flues, which, from their peculiar construction, cannot be swept without great personal hazard. They Your committee have had laid before them an account of various accidents that have happened to chimney-sweepers, by being forced to ascend these small flues. They beg leave to refer particularly to a recent case, which occurred on Thursday the 6th day of March 1817, and which is contained in the minutes of evidence. wish also to direct the attention of the House to one of those instances of cruelty, which terminated in the death of an infant of about six years of age, in the month of April 1816: William Moles and Sarah his wife were tried at the Old Bailey for the wilful murder of John Hewley alias Haseley, by cruelly beating him. Under the direction of the learned judge, they were acquitted of the Your committee observe, that crime of murder, but the husband VOL. LIX. X was was detained to take his trial for a misdemeanor, of which he was convicted upon the fullest evidence, and sentenced to two years imprisonment. The facts of the case were, that this infant was forced up the chimney on the shoulder of a larger boy, and afterwards violently pulled down again by the leg, and dashed against a marble hearth; his leg was thus broken, and he died a few hours after; on his body and knees were found sores, arising from wounds of a much older date. But it is not only the ill-treatment which the regular apprentices suffer from the cruel conduct of some masters that your committee are anxious to comment on; it appears that in order to evade the penalty of the act of parliament, some of these masters frequently hire young lads as journeymen who have not been apprenticed to chimney-sweepers ; these are children who have no parents, and who are enticed away from the different workhouses of the Metropolis. Having thus shortly detailed the leading facts of the evidence which has been given before them, of the miseries which the unfortunate class of beings who are sold to this trade experience, your committee have with great anxiety examined various persons, as to the possibility of performing by the aid of machinery what is now done by the labour of the climbing boys: the result of their inquiries is, that though there may be some difference of opinion as to the extent to which machinery is here applicable, yet the lowest calculation of practical and experienced persons, master chimney-sweepers themselves, who have been brought up in the trade, establishes the fact, that of the chimneys in the metropolis three-fourths may be as well, as cleanly, and as cheaply swept by mechanical means as by the present method; and the remaining part being, on the very greatest calculation, one fourth of the whole number, with alterations that may easily and cheaply be made, can be swept also without the employment of the climbing boy. Mr. Bevans, an architeet much conversant with buildings in the Metropolis, has no doubt that 95 out of 100 can be swept by the machines that are at present in use; and he has also no doubt that, supposing there was to be a legislative enactment that no chimney should be swept by the means of climbing boys, that easy substitutes could be found that would sweep every chimney that now exists. He adds, that though there may be difficulties in cleaning an horizontal flue, from the quantity of soot, yet it is equally bad for the boys as for the machine; because the boy, as he comes down, has an accumulation of soot about him, which stops up the circulation of air necessary to support life. that it is evident, in all those chimneys where, under their present construction, the machine cannot be used, the hazard of loss of life to the boy who sweeps them, is most imminent. So Some of these flues are stated not to be above seven inches square; and one of the witnesses, who relates this fact to the Committee, informs them, that he himself had been often in hazard of his life; and that he has frequently swept a long COMMITTEE ON FINANCE. a long narrow flue in Goldsmith's FIRST REPORT FROM THE SELECT Hall, in which he was shut up six hours before his work was finished. Upon a review then of the evidence of the evils necessarily belonging to this trade, as well as of the remedies which have been suggested, First, in the substitution of mechanical means, thus superseding the necessity of employing children in this painful and degrading trade; and, secondly, in allowing the system to continue in the main as it is, with only those amendments to the existing law, that may attempt to remedy the present practice;-your Committee are decidedly of opinion, that no parliamentary regulations can attain this desirable end; that as long as master chimney-sweepers are permitted to employ climbing boys, the natural result of that permission will be the continuance of those miseries which the legislature has sought, but which it has failed to put an end to; they therefore recommend, that the use of climbing boys should be prohibited altogether; and that the age at which the apprenticeship should commence should be extended from eight to fourteen, putting this trade upon the same footing as others which take apprentices at that age; and, finally, your committee have come to the following resolution : Resolved, That the Chairman be directed to move for leave to bring in a bill for preventing the further use of climbing boys in sweeping of chimneys. 23d June, 1917. The Select Committee appointed The Select Committee appointed to inquire into, and state, the income and expenditure of the United Kingdom, for the year ended the 5th of January, 1817; and also to consider and state the probable income and expenditure, (so far as the same can now be estimated) for the years ending the 5th of January, 1818, and the 5th of January, 1819, respectively; and to report the same, together with their obser. vations thereupon, from time to time, to the House, and also to consider what further measures may be adopted for the relief of the country from any part of the said expenditure, without detriment to the public interest; Having had under their consideration the state of various offices in the United Kingdom, which are commonly, though incorrectly, known under the general denomination of sinecures, conceive that they cannot better discharge the duty imposed upon them by the latter part of the order of reference, than by bringing under the early notice of the House, the annual charge incurred by the continuance of offices, either wholly useless, or the salaries of which appear disproportionate to their actual duties; and of the system, which they submit, as fit to be substituted in their stead. The subject is by no means new to the house, having been brought under discussion at various times within the last ten years, and particularly in the session of 1812, when it was made the foundation |