The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1878-02-21
Chimneys ard Chimney.Sweepers.

was burned altogether, SCOT from the
wood fires would collect in the CHM
neys, and if this were not removed
from time to time, it would catch on
fire and burn furiously, and if this hap
pened in dry time, there was danger
that the house, or other houses, might
be burned. Those who make a
trade of clearing out chimneys are
called "chimney-sweepers, chimney
sweeps and more frequently merely
"sweeps." A "sweep'' is now quite
rare in New York, though once in a
while we have seen one in the back
streets, and looking as if he had not
had job in very long time. Still,
one need not be very old to recollect
when the sweeps cry was one of the
common street noises. They usually
went in pairs, a man and boy, and as
they dressed in keeping with their
trade, you may be sure that they were
not very handsome to look at. They
we're generally colored people, but if
white persons followed the business,
they were so blackened with SCOT that
it was not easy to tell them from the
black sweeps. Early in the morning
the streets would ring with their cries.
The fellows had strong voices, and
they would sing 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 burn
ing 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 are still a
few old-fashioned people who prefer to
burn wood-enough in large city
like New York to give employment to
here and there sweep. The use of
coal in place of wood for cooking and
warming houses was a great improve
ment-and a great blessing, too, for if
all burned wood now, as they did fifty
years ago, it is difficult to see where
enough wood could have been found,
and it would now be very costly ar
ticlc. The houses of our grandparents
were, at best, but poorly heated by
wood fires, and coal not only brought
an increase of comfort, but much labor
of saving, splitting and bringing in
wood and keeping the fire III good order
was saved. But the coming in of coal
brought greater blessing than either
or all of these-at least to 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 bad one; sometimes
wicked one, in the abuse of little
boys. Some machines were invented,
which allowed the sweeping of CHM
neys to be done by men only, but most
of the sweeps stuck to the old plan, and
had boy to climb up on the inside of
the chimney, and scrape away the SCOT
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 CHM
ney, with the SCOT filling the air and
making it difficult to breathe! But be-
fore we say any more about our little
friend, the sweep, let US say something
about chimneys. You must know that
people had fires in their homes long be-
fore they had cbimneys. How very
uncomfortable it must have been to
have fire in the middle of the room,
and hole in the ceiling above for the
smoke to 90 out of, and the rain to
come in at. Yet this was the way in
which those who, 500 years ago, lived
m the grand old castles, managed their
fires. We read absut 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 nowadays. The first
chimneys were not made like ours; the
stone walls of the big houses and castles
were very thick, and a fireplace was
made in the wall, with passage in the
wall for the smoke, which found its
way to the open air through hole in
the side of the building. After while
chimneys, much such as we have
now, were built. Where wood is
burned, some of the matters that
are formed in the burning coadense
on the sides of the chimney, that
is, they cool and harden there, and this
forms what is called SCOT, which in
time would gather in such quantities
as to check, if it did not stop the draft.
Beside this, as already stated, the SCOT
will burn, and a chimney on fire. as
it is called, is dangerous affair in a
dry time. There were two ways of get
ing rid of the SCOT, one was to burn it
out, taking wet day when there was
no danger of setting the roofs on fire
A lot OF straw or shavings were put in
to the chimney and set on fire and the
SCOT 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 fues were so
small that only boy could work his
way through them. For many years,
in England. the homeless pauper boys
were apprenticed to chimney-sweepers,
and it would be sad story if the suf-
ferings of these poor little creatures
could be told. Living in dirt, and
breathing SCOT, they were subject to
peculiar diseases, and one known as
the schimney sweeps cancer" was
very fatal. But let us be glad that the
law has put 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 SCOT, but where the soft
or bituminous coal is used, as it is west