The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1855-11-22
The Last of the Chimney sweepers.

| We met on Chesnut treet, day or two
since, what We should judge to be tht
last living representative of this once dis
tinguished race. He was the centre O
attraction to quite an admiring crowd
the pavement being thronged with ole
and young, gay gentlemen and gayer la.
dies, white-haired octogenarians and
chubby-cheeked children, all of whom in.
voluntarily stayed their steps to gsze up
on the unwonted sight. 1t is long since
Chestnut street could boast of such an at.
traction. The race is nearly extinct
Modern innovations, in the shape of pat
ent fues, heaters, gas owes, &C. &C., have
superseded the necessity for scrapers and
brushes and machinery now does the
work of the hands. The chimney sweep
er's occupation is gone. 1t is long since
we have heard, at break of day, his mer-
ry song, issuing at once from his own and
the chimney's tbroat.-We no longer are
startled, as we walk along the street, by
the once familiar cadence that seemed
born in the upper atmosphere and float
ed melodiously far above our heads. We
see no uncouth visages and stangely ac-
coutred arms stretched forth from the
sooty caverns of the chimney tops, nor
do mysterious urchins, resembling imps
of darkness, having mistaken their way,
drop unaccountably upon our parlor or
bedroom hearths. Our broad cloths and
satins are no longer liable to be brushed
by the sooty blankets as we pass along
the busy thoroughfares. The once fam
iliar race now scarcely exists but in mem
ory or in some work of art, the effort of
some daring painter or engraver. Where
did they all betake themselves They dis
appeared as mysteriously y and noiselessly
as the leaves in autumn.-They we're
here, and they have vanished, and so ends
their history. From what subterranean
cavern the specimen in question emerged
is more than we can tell, but there be was,
the monarch of the sidewalk, the 'observ-
ed of all observers, the hero of the passing
hour. He was honored alike with awe and
curiosity. He wore the same old blanket,
once SO familiar, thrown gracefully a.
round bis shoulders and falling in un-
studied drapery about his form; and he
evidently had not revised his toilet, for
the SCOT stood in ridges on his sable face
and nestled lovingly in the folds of his
garment There he stood, silent and i'm
movable (for your true sweep is loqua-
cious, the peculiar character of his pro-
fessional labor teaching him to keep his
mouth closed,) entirely unabashed, be-
fore the numerous eyes that were bent up
on him, reminding one of some dignifed
Indian warrior confronting his enemies
The sight was interesting and efecting.
The race has evidently deteriorated and
dwindled down from the robust and ath-
letic figure of a full grown man to the
Insignificant proportions of a pigmy, for
this representative might easily have
made his bed in an ordinary band box.
What physical or other causes have led
to SO sad retrogression in the scale of
being? Of the personal history of this
mysterious visitant we were unable to
learn anything. There he was, on the
pavement in Chestnut street, surrounded
by group of admiring wayfarers, and
there must we leave him, simply asking
him the two questions in the old song,
with which his predecessors were doubt
less all familiar
'Oh! whar did you come from,
And where are you going to-"